Timo Glock gave the Japanese crowd what it wanted - and
Toyota some useful headline material - by snatching the fastest time in the second free practice session of the opening day at Fuji.
The German had spent the earlier 90-minute session finding his bearings after missing last year's Japanese Grand Prix because of GP2 commitments, but bounced to the head of the timesheets in the afternoon, edging both Singapore race winner
Fernando Alonso and world championship leader
Lewis Hamilton by less than a tenth of a second.
Making the most of the team's decision to swap his V8 for a fresh unit under the 2008 'joker' rules, Glock clocked a 1min 18.383secs effort to top Alonso's 1min 18.426secs and Hamilton's 1min 18.463secs marks. Of course, it remains unclear as to exactly what gameplan each team was following but, with the first 17 runners within a second of the pace, it is unlikely that Toyota had opted to run extremely light in order to claim a little 'hometown' glory.
Behind Hamilton, who had set the pace in the morning session with the only lap under 1min 19secs, came title rival Massa and
Ferrari team-mate
Kimi Raikkonen, although the pair were split by a couple of tenths despite times not tumbling as many had predicted. Hamilton, meanwhile, reported that he and
McLaren had found a near-perfect balance straight away and was expecting more on Saturday.
Red Bull's
Mark Webber and
Williams'
Kazuki Nakajima filled the next two places with
Sebastian Vettel, despite some hydraulic issues,
Heikki Kovalainen and the second Toyota of
Jarno Trulli rounded out the top ten, ahead of
Robert Kubica,
Nelson Piquet Jr and
Nico Rosberg, although everyone down to an oversteering
David Coulthard in 17th could claim to be within touching distance of Glock.
Only
Giancarlo Fisichella,
Nick Heidfeld - surprisingly - and
Jenson Button fell outside the one-second bracket, with the Briton only just avoiding slipping back into the 1min 20s.
