Porsche WEC driver Lotterer was the only one to dip below the 1m36s barrier with a time of 1m35.657s in the afternoon session, beating teammate Kazuki Nakajima by 0.414s.

The latter was one of many drivers to improve on their laptimes in the dying moments of the two-hour afternoon session.

Inging's Hiroaki Ishiura completed a Toyota 1-2-3, with reigning GP2 champion Gasly 0.006s off in fourth place.

The Red Bull junior, who is making his debut in the Japanese premier single-seater championship, was the highest-placed of the Honda drivers

Yuhi Sekiguchi (Impul), who had topped the morning session, was fifth overall, ahead of reigning champion Yuji Kunimoto (Inging).

Toyota WEC driver Kamui Kobayashi kicked off his collaboration with KCMG, having left Team LeMans in the off-season, in seventh.

The Dandelion duo of Takuya Izawa and Tomoki Nojiri were eighth and ninth respectively, as Real Racing’s Koudai Tsukakoshi rounded out the Top 10.

Newcomers Jann Mardenborough (Impul), Nick Cassidy (Kondo Racing) and Felix Rosenqvist (Team LeMans) were 11th, 13th and 16th respectively.

Former Formula 1 driver Narain Karthikeyan, who switched from Team LeMans Toyota to Honda's Nakajima Racing outfit for this year, was 12th in the order.

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