Sebastian Vettel feels his first practice accident at Suzuka yesterday served as a wake-up call to avoid thinking of his impending world title triumph.

Vettel committed a rare error in what has been an exemplary season when he lost concentration approaching the famous Degner Curves.

With Vettel requiring just a point from tomorrow’s Japanese Grand Prix to become the youngest back-to-back and double world champion, the unforgiving track bit the 24-year-old hard.

Late on the brakes turning into the first of the two Degner right-handed turns, Vettel ran wide onto the astroturf and then into the gravel where he ground to a halt, nudging the nose of his Red Bull gently against a tyre barrier.

“I had a good reminder in practice not to start thinking about something else,” said Vettel. “It was not really a big mistake, but maybe at that moment I was not 100 per cent awake, and mistakes around here can be quite costly.”

Vettel, who finished third on the timesheet behind Jenson Button – the only man who can deprive him of the title – added: “It was not a big impact, but it did do some damage to the car.”

Vettel’s mistake was followed up in the second session by other incidents, the most notable of which saw Rubens Barrichello crumple his Grove-based Williams into a tyre barrier.

In what turned out to be a wretched session for Williams, Pastor Maldonado suffered a mechanical gremlin that forced him to pull off the track.

Earlier, Bruno Senna was too late braking in his Enstone-based Lotus Renault into turn one, and slid across the gravel, stopping just short of a barrier.

Fortunately for Senna he managed to keep the engine in his Renault running, which enabled him to get a push from the marshals and see out the session.

The trio all finished in the lower half on the timesheet.