The Cadillac Formula 1® Team took to the Suzuka Circuit for the first day of practice ahead of Sunday's Japanese Grand Prix. Checo Perez and Valtteri Bottas completed a total of 84 laps as the team built on its double finish in the Chinese Grand Prix two weeks ago.

Valtteri had a very solid day, completing 52 laps in total across the two practice sessions. Checo had a strong morning session, however his running was disrupted in the afternoon due to damage sustained in an incident with Alex Albon at the end of FP1.

Today marks a significant milestone for Checo with it being 15 years since he made his official Formula 1® debut at the 2011 Australian Grand Prix. His Formula 1® career spans a total of 283 Grands Prix, with six race wins and 39 podiums so far.

Checo Perez: "This morning we got through the majority of the program and the car felt pretty balanced. I missed a run at the end of the session with the incident with Alex [Albon] which then impacted the rest of the day as we were late out in the afternoon. When I did go out, we had another issue with the energy deployment and lost a lot of lap time. It hasn't been the most straightforward day and it's difficult to draw many conclusions, but we'll look into everything from Valtteri as well and have a cleaner day tomorrow."

Valtteri Bottas: "First of all, it's fun to be driving at my favorite track once again. On my side of the garage, today was the best day we've had so far this season, with not a single issue. It meant we could completely focus on performance, fine tuning the balance and getting on with setup work. I feel we've gained a bit of load and stability with the upgrades this week, which gives me confidence that we're going to see progress. We're still lacking in areas compared to the top teams, but at least the direction is right and now we know, again, where we need to keep focusing on. Let's see what tomorrow brings."

Pat Symonds, Executive Engineer: "Today was a pretty good day. As we get more races under our belt we are really settling into a good rhythm. We brought some small upgrades to the car this weekend and, while we are still analyzing the data, both drivers seem happy with the balance of the car. There was a little upset after this morning's collision, which cost us some time getting out in the second practice. Other than that, it was a relatively smooth day and we look forward to more of the same tomorrow, doing the best job we can, snapping away to get up into that midfield."

Check out our Friday gallery from Suzuka here.