Andrew Benson
Chief F1 writer at Suzuka

It has clouded over at Suzuka over the lunch break. But the rain threatened tonight is still some way away. Can Lewis Hamilton find the pace in this second session he was lacking in first practice? How close will Red Bull be once they put on the soft tyres they have not yet used? And will the radio I lost somewhere between Dunlop and the Degners on my track walk this morning turn up? To at least the first two answers there should be an answer in the next 90 minutes or so. Sadly, having been back out there, I suspect the radio is gone. Maybe the massive spider I found ate it.

Sweet dreams had by all?

Good.

Just under 30 minutes til FP2 begins. 

Well that was all well and dandy, but I fear it's time for all of us to power down for a bit.

I'm off to remove the stray tyre rubber from the aerial of my car.

Speaking of Kvyat, here's a Japanese fan's artistic interpretation of the great man himself. 

A lovely image to help you snooze between now and 05:30 BST, when we'll be back with FP2.

Image source, Getty Images

So we can collectively stick a fork in FP1. Not a huge amount to read into these opening-session times as always, but Rosberg being ahead of Hamilton by a couple of tenths is perhaps a minor victory in their title duel.

The rest are labouring in their silvery wake. A full second separates the Ferrari of Vettel in third from Rosberg, with the second scarlet car of Raikkonen a further three tenths back. 

The Red Bulls are next up, a few tenths shy of the Ferraris, then come the Force Indias, Alonso's McLaren and Bottas' Williams. 

Lloyd Alexander Q: Lewis why is it always your engines that keep failing and Nico’s engines never seem to fail?

Fahmi: Can he (Lewis) stop being such a big baby whiner?

Dave Grinzi: Kimi - How much carnage do you want to see at the first corner this weekend?

Bud3131123: Can I drive the car? 

Jack Nicholls: "That was a bit of a let down."

Tom Clarkson: "Well what were you expecting?"

Jack Nicholls: "Well... an octopus, clearly."

"Oh, the annoying octopus is back!"  

Daniil Kvyat just uttered these words over the radio to his Toro Rosso team.

We at BBC Towers have absolutely no idea what he's wittering on about.

Andrew Benson
Chief F1 writer at Suzuka

Image source, gett

Romain Grosjean has attracted a lot of comment for his sometimes-emotional radio messages detailing how dreadful he feels the Haas car has been at times, but in Japan on Thursday he mounted a steadfast defence of his position. “Sometimes I’ve got a tendency to be too pushy and too passionate, but that’s what the guys love. When I crashed the car in qualifying in Singapore I came back and said, ‘Sorry it’s going to be a lot of work tonight.’ They said, ‘We don’t care, we know you’re out there, you’re doing 120%, and that’s what we want to see.’ There’s nothing personal when I say the car is bad and so on. It’s to put words on the feeling, which is not so easy to do.

"It’s like when you try something and it’s disgusting, it’s ‘I hate it.’ It’s not against the thing or the cook. It’s just not your taste. But you need to put a word on the feeling. I’m passionate. I’m not a Finn who is very calm. I’m more a Latin guy. I live my passion.

“It sounds like I’m an asshole in the car, but in the end I’m a nice guy, or I think I’m a nice guy, and everyone knows it, and they know that if I’m pushing it’s because I’m pushing myself, and I want to push everyone the same way.”

The Frenchman admitted that he has tried to calm down recently: “I’ve tried to back off, because it’s playing on the TV and so on, and people who don’t know me, they think it’s wrong.”

Yellow flagpublished at 03:06 British Summer Time 7 October 2016

03:06 BST 7 October 2016

Romain Grosjean's Haas is off at Degner. Like Alonso earlier, he is able to recover his car to the pits but it looks a little second-hand in parts. 

The Frenchman comes on the radio, telling his team: "The brake doesn't brake!"

That'd do it.

It's all been a bit nothingy up to now, but Rosberg has just grabbed the attention with a highly impressive time of 1:32.431 on the soft tyre - a time faster than last year's pole. 

Mercedes team-mate Hamilton also improves and remains around two tenths adrift.

Then it's a second back to the Ferraris...

Image source, Getty Images

NB: That spider is the same distance away as the big wheel. I therefore calculate it is around 25 metres across and will devour us all.