Formula One championship leader Lewis Hamilton has completed a practice clean sweep in his Mercedes, setting the pace in the final hour of track action before qualifying for the Japanese Grand Prix.

The Briton, who had dominated Friday’s opening day of practice, lapped the 5.8km long Suzuka circuit in one minute, 29.599 seconds on Saturday in a session that saw an early drizzle and gusty winds.

Hamilton’s championship rival Sebastian Vettel was second fastest for Ferrari.

The German, trailling Hamilton by 50 points in the overall standings after the Briton won five of the past six races, had been nearly a second adrift of his rival’s best on Friday, but closed that gap to 0.116 seconds on Saturday.

Kimi Raikkonen followed his Ferrari teammate in third ahead of Red Bull’s Max Verstappen and Valtteri Bottas of Mercedes, who was 0.823 seconds off team-mate Hamilton’s pace.

Daniel Ricciardo was sixth for Red Bull ahead of Esteban Ocon, who swept “best of the rest” honours for the third successive session in his Force India.

Saturday’s final practice session was interrupted by early drizzle but the track dried out enough to allow the cars back out on slick tyres with a little less than 30 minutes remaining.

The biggest incident was a crash for Nico Hulkenberg two minutes before the chequered flag that brought out the red flags and ended the session. The German walked away unhurt.