With Fernando Alonso securing the drivers' championship in the Brazilian Grand
Prix the teams would move to Suzuka for the 2005 Japanese Grand Prix. Japanese driver Sako Yamamoto would join the Jordan team as their third driver for Friday's practice sessions. With the start of the opening Friday practice session it would be Yamamoto first out onto the circuit followed by Red Bull's Christian Klien and McLaren's Pedro de la Rosa.

They would be joined by several other drivers as they completed their installation lap. It would be de la Rosa who would set the first time with a 1m:38.558 to go fastest. The only other drivers on the track at this time were Takuma Sato and Narain Karthikeyan. De la Rosa would improve his time with a to a 1m:35.336.

Mark Webber would come out to start a flying lap while de la Rosa was now the only other driver on the track. With ten minutes of the session run Mark would set a time of 1m:35.041 to move into second. Behind then came Klien, Toyota's Ricardo Zonta, the second FW27 of Antonio Pizzonia, and Yamamoto. Kimi
Raikkonen would move into second while Red Bull's David Coulthard was now in fourth.

With twenty minutes of the session run Coulthard would move into third, making the order de la Rosa from Raikkonen, Coulthard, Webber, Klien, Liuzzi,
Pizzonia, Zonta, Yamamoto and Monteiro. Sato was now third with a 1m:34.709. The first of the Renaults would set a time with Giancarlo Fisichella setting a time of 1m:33.470 to move into second. At the front De la Rosa would improve his time to now be 1.3 seconds ahead of the second placed Renault.

The second Renault of Fernando Alonso would move into fourth place. The Spaniard would have a moment that would see him take to the grass but was able to continue and return to his garage. Webber would improve to now be just nine tenths off the De la Rosa's time. Button was now in third. With just under thirty minutes remaining in the session Button would move ahead of Mark, making the order de la Rosa from Button, Webber, Fisichella, Raikkonen, Alonso, Sato, Coulthard, Zonta, and Klien. Sato as now in third with a 1m:32.791.

Alonso was on a quick lap, fastest, in the opening sector, but would see a slow second sector see not challenge for the top spot. But for the McLaren team and Kimi Raikkonen it would all go wrong when he would stop out on the circuit. His McLaren would have smoke coming from the rear pointing to another engine failure. With an engine change Kimi would again be looking at losing ten places on the grid.

At the front the Renault's of Alonso and Fisichella were in second and third. De la Rosa was still fastest with a time of 1m:32.099. With fifteen minutes remaining Jenson Button would move to the top of the times with a lap of 1m:32.043. Zonta would snatch this place from Jenson but de la Rosa would just as quickly move ahead of the Toyota driver with a time of 1m:30.532 to be ahead by half a second.

With ten minutes remaining the order was de la Rosa from Zonta, Button,
Coulthard, Alonso, and Fisichella. Montoya would move into fifth. The order was the front would remain the same but Zonta would have an off track moment in the closing minutes of the session. Mark would finish the session in ninth while Antonio, on his first visit to the Suzuka circuit, was down in fourteenth. For Mark his session was cut short when he was to have problems with his car that would see him return to his garage after only thirteen laps.