Nico has been quicker than Lewis in both Friday's sessions, but there's very little between the two. The surprise is to find Ferrari and Red Bull so close to them in a circuit where even more time is spend at full throttle than Sepang. 
Red Bull chassis normally shines in the fast directional changes of Suzuka, and there was an air of confidence in RIC saying they will have the race pace -if not the single lap- to challenge the Silver machines this Sunday. 

FP1 - ROS (1.32.431) HAM VET RAI RIC VER HUL PER ALO BOT

FP2-  ROS (1.32.250) HAM VER VET PER HUL ALO BOT SAI

Both Ferrari and Red Bull were over a second slower than Mercedes in FP1 but moved to within 3 to 4 tenths when testing switched to soft compound and long stints to simulate race conditions. RIC was 12th because his flyer was aborted by a VIrtual Safety Car. Best of the rest (outside the top 3 teams) are again the Force Indias, but they are a long way back, as much as 2 seconds.

A close call again for QF between Nico & Lewis, and then between Red Bull & Ferrari for 3-4-5-6, and to make matters more interesting the probability of rain is very high during QF tomorrow. VET will drop 3 grid positions to serve a penalty for his first corner accident with ROS last Sunday, and that will likely make the team to compromise his race set up and tyre strategy to help starting as far in front as he can. 

Another tough one...Cato - HAM ROS RIC. 

What do you think?

Till tomorrow