Sebastian Vettel was happy enough with the first day in Japan, despite a crash in FP1 this morning.
Vettel made the classic Suzuka mistake of running wide at the first Degner corner and failing to get back on track to take the second part. He damaged his front wing on the tyre wall.
Vettel still finished third in that session, and was also third – behind Button and Alonso – in the afternoon.
“I think it was not really a big mistake,” said Vettel. “Mistakes around here can be quite costly. I went off and tried to come back, tried to slow the car down as much as possible, but didn’t make it and hot the wall slightly. Not a big impact, but obviously some damage to the car.
“Not perfect, and it did affect our run plan a little bit. But we had a solid afternoon, it’s pretty tricky this year with the tyres, I think the cars generally are much more alive. After I stopped I had the opportunity to see some of the car I could see for Suzuka they are much more alive than they used to be. Sunday will be quite an interesting race.”
Vettel said it wasn’t easy to take the 130R lefthander with the DRS open.
“It’s not comfortable, let’s say. I think last year we went generally a bit quicker round here, this year we are a bit slower. It’s definitely exciting, not as easy as it used to be, 130R, most of the time we lifted today, usually it was always easy flat. It wasn’t today, especially with the DRS open.”
Asked if it was difficult not to be distracted by the championship situation, Vettel said: “I would say I had a good reminder this morning in the practice not to think about something else!”
Adam Cooper F1 
Seb Vettel is 4/6 favourite to win the Japanese Grand Prix. Mark Webber is 8/1. As the great man once said “not bad for a second driver!” 0 wins, two seconds and, remarkably, that poor record comes courtesy of just one DNF
The interesting question what was he getting his knickers in a twist about when they picked up the car? Was it that they had it angled so the under-side was showing, or was it potential damage around the roll-hoop?