The Red Bull driver followed the red flag-enforced hiatus, produced by Logan Sargeant's crash, with a hot lap on soft tyres that eventually landed on a 1m30.056s to throw down the gauntlet for the rest of the weekend.
In anticipation of any inclement weather at Suzuka later on in the weekend, it appeared that many of the teams wished to prioritise the longer runs during FP1 in the event that FP2 faces any rainfall.
This stunted the period of faster runs on the soft tyre, as the opening half-hour of running was dedicated to the hard and medium compounds amid the early installation laps.
Lando Norris led the way after the opening 15 minutes, having traded top-line times with Melbourne winner Carlos Sainz, but the Briton then had his time matched to the thousandth by Fernando Alonso.
Verstappen then raised the bar with a 1m31.463s, ominously on the hard tyre, before a lull in proceedings among the majority of the field as the teams switched from the cast of medium and hard tyres for a soft run during the second half of the session.
This prompted Lewis Hamilton to vault to the top on softs, almost a second faster than his 2021 title rival's time.
Source: Autosport