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After Friday was effectively a washout with rain for most of the day and the track waterlogged for both of the first two free practice sessions, we finally got a taste of dry running on Saturday morning during the one-hour FP3. And what did it tell us heading into qualifying at Suzuka?
To be honest - not a definitive amount. Mercedes do look to be back on top, with Nico Rosberg setting the pace with a lap of 1:33.995 putting him some 0.3s ahead of his team-mate Lewis Hamilton. That said, neither man looked to be particularly focussed on qualifying runs: both Rosberg and Hamilton set their best lap times in single efforts about 40 minutes into the session and after that neither seemed inclined to push to improve further in the remaining time available.
Even so, the result does seem to confirm that Mercedes is over the worst of its Singapore slump. Best of the rest was Red Bull's Daniel Ricciardo who was first out on track at the start of the session and immediately pushing really hard. That seemed to put the pressure on his young team mate Daniil Kvyat who made a number of mistakes during FP3, repeatedly going off at Spoon and Degner 2. Kvyat was far from alone in doing that, mind, and those two locations should be particularly good ones to keep an eye on for incidents during qualifying and indeed for Sunday's race.
After a poor time of it in the wet conditions on Friday, Williams perked up nicely in the dry and Valtteri Bottas and Felipe Massa were fourth and fifth fastest respectively in FP3. If Mercedes turn out not to be fully back to their best then Williams could well be contenders to threaten for the front row. And of course there's also Ferrari to think about, although they preferred a low-key practice and were only sixth (Kimi Raikkonen) and eighth (Sebastian Vettel) in the session. Expect more to come from the Scuderia once things get serious in qualifying.
If you've been following F1i's live commentaries so far this weekend then you'll already be familiar with the basic details of this week's race venue: built in 1962 and first used by Formula One in 1987, Suzuka is 3.609 miles (5.807km) in length with 17 corners. The lap record is held by Kimi Raikkonen who set a time of 1:31.540s in the McLaren in 2005. It's one of the few circuits in the world to have a 'figure of 8' configuration meaning that the track passes under itself between turns 9 and 10.
You can follow all the live coverage on F1i's live page, which can be bookmarked as it will provide commentary on every session of the 2015 F1 season.
LIVE: Japanese Grand Prix Qualifying
REPORT: Rosberg sets pace in busy final practice
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