VIDEO: Hamilton's scary moment with Gasly

Mercedes knew they needed to take as many points as possible to boost Lewis Hamilton's title bid, but they got a reminder anyway in the first practice session for the Japanese Grand Prix as a slow-moving forced the championship leader to take evasive action, narrowly missing a high-speed collision with the Toro Rosso. Gasly was reprimanded over the incident. It was an otherwise successful FP1 session for Hamilton as he topped the timesheets, almost half a second clear of the field, with team-mate Valtteri Bottas in second place.

That was a close one ????#JapaneseGP ???????? #F1 pic.twitter.com/nmkONVTNjk — Formula 1 (@F1) October 5, 2018