McLaren's Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton headed the timesheets after first free practice in the Suzuka sunshine this morning.

Red Bull's Mark Webber headed the second session, from Hamton and Sebastian Vettel in the other Red Bull.

Button, last year's race winner who has a five place grid penalty for Sunday's 15th round of the season due to a gearbox change, lapped with a best time of one minute 34.507 seconds with Hamilton 0.233 slower.

Title contenders McLaren will be chasing a fifth successive pole position tomorrow, the team's best run of qualifying form since 1999 when Finland's Mika Hakkinen chalked up five in a row.

Australian Mark Webber was the third fastest in the first session. His winning time in the second session was 1m32.493s.

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