page_title: 2014 Japanese Grand Prix
section_title: Practice
hierarchical_section_title: 2014 Japanese Grand Prix / Practice
caption_attribution_description: English: Lewis Hamilton after crash during FP3 at the 2014 Japanese Grand Prix Français&#160;: Lewis Hamilton après son accident à la troisième séance d'essais libres du Grand Prix du Japon 2014.
context_page_description: The 2014 Japanese Grand Prix was a Formula One motor race held on 5 October 2014 at the Suzuka Circuit in Suzuka, Mie. It was the fifteenth race of the 2014 FIA Formula One World Championship, and the 30th Japanese Grand Prix held as part of the Formula One World Championship. The 44-lap race was won by Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton, who started from second position. His teammate, Nico Rosberg, finished second and Red Bull Racing driver Sebastian Vettel came in third. It was Hamilton's eighth victory of the season, his first at Suzuka and the 30th of his Formula One career.
  Heavy rain from Typhoon Phanfone made the track surface wet and reduced visibility. Starting from behind the safety car, the race was stopped after two laps and resumed 20 minutes later. Rosberg immediately blocked a pass by Hamilton heading into the first corner. His car then experienced oversteer, and Hamilton reduced the time deficit between them. Hamilton challenged Rosberg for the lead over the next four laps, before overtaking him on the 29th lap and pulling away.
  The race was scheduled to run for 53 laps, but was brought to an end on the 46th lap after an accident involving Jules Bianchi.
context_section_description: Three practice sessions – two on Friday and a third on Saturday – were held before the race on Sunday. The Friday morning and afternoon sessions lasted ninety minutes each; the third, one-hour session was held on Saturday morning. Mercedes conducted race simulations to see how the cars would behave with a heavy fuel load. Rosberg was fastest in the first practice session with a lap time of 1 minute, 35.461 seconds, ahead of teammate Hamilton in second. Alonso was third-fastest, ahead of Valtteri Bottas, Kimi Räikkönen, Kevin Magnussen, Ricciardo, Jenson Button, Vettel and Daniil Kvyat. Verstappen's run ended early when he pulled over to the side of the track at the S curves with smoke billowing from his engine because of a broken exhaust valve, while Merhi spun at turn 13, causing Bottas to swerve to avoid him.
  In the second session, Hamilton set the fastest lap of the day at 1 minute, 35.078 seconds. Rosberg, Bottas, Button, Vettel, Räikkönen, Alonso, Magnussen, Kvyat and Ricciardo completed the top ten. Some cars went off the track; Ricciardo disrupted the session for eight minutes when an oversteer sent him into a barrier at turn 18. Kobayashi lost control of the rear of his Caterham at turn three, damaging his rear suspension and front wing, while Vergne stopped his car on the back straight after exiting the Spoon Curve with a fuel pump problem. Esteban Gutiérrez later lost control of his Sauber entering the Spoon Curve and crashed into a tyre barrier. Vergne stopped a second time with an electrical problem after exiting turn 14; this resulted in a second red flag stopping the session early due to limited time available. Rosberg recorded the fastest lap of the third session at 1 minute, 33.228 seconds, ahead of Hamilton and Alonso. Felipe Massa, Bottas, Ricciardo, Magnussen, Vergne, Kvyat and Button occupied positions four through ten. Hamilton drove quickly into the first turn but ran wide onto a run-off area and collided with a tyre barrier, damaging the left front quarter of his car, while Gutiérrez lost control of his car's rear at the exit of turn 15 but avoided a crash.
caption: Lewis Hamilton after damaging his car in an accident during the third practice session
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA", "Image Make": "OLYMPUS IMAGING CORP.", "Image Model": "E-P1", "Image XResolution": "240", "Image YResolution": "240", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 5.6 (Macintosh)", "Image DateTime": "2014:10:14 06:12:39", "Image ExifOffset": "264", "GPS GPSVersionID": "[2, 2, 0, 0]", "GPS GPSLatitudeRef": "N", "GPS GPSLatitude": "[34, 503169/10000, 0]", "GPS GPSLongitudeRef": "E", "GPS GPSLongitude": "[136, 163019/5000, 0]", "GPS GPSAltitudeRef": "0", "GPS GPSAltitude": "6959965/199999", "GPS GPSTimeStamp": "[2, 57, 28]", "GPS GPSMapDatum": "WGS-84", "GPS GPSDate": "2014:10:04", "Image GPSInfo": "898", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "1218", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "24308", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/320", "EXIF FNumber": "8", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "200", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0230", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2014:10:04 11:57:26", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2014:10:04 11:57:26", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "1040241/125000", "EXIF ApertureValue": "6", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "4", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, auto mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "90", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "76370275/32768", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "76370275/32768", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "3", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF CVAPattern": "[2, 0, 2, 0, 0, 1, 1, 2]", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "180", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "Low gain up", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Hard", "EXIF Sharpness": "Hard", "EXIF BodySerialNumber": "H44526116", "EXIF LensSpecification": "[14, 150, 4, 28/5]", "EXIF LensModel": "OLYMPUS M.14-150mm F4.0-5.6", "EXIF LensSerialNumber": "AAK210394"}