Abu Dhabi GP: Pirelli Friday Practice Review

Another all-time lap record fell on Friday, with Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton beating his own benchmark from 2011 in FP2, which up to now had been the fastest-ever lap of the spectacular Yas Marina circuit.

Currently, around 0.8 seconds separate the supersoft from the ultrasoft, a slightly bigger gap than had been originally envisaged. However, this gap could reduce depending on pace management during the race.

MARIO ISOLA - HEAD OF CAR RACING
“From what we can see so far, wear and degradation seems very low here, like we expected. As is virtually always the case, the FP1 and FP3 sessions are less representative when it comes to data collection, so most of the useful work here was concentrated into FP2 starting at 5pm – like qualifying and the race. The initial data from the sessions suggests that the three top teams are closely matched in terms of race and qualifying pace. Race strategy looks like it’s going towards a one-stop but with a comparatively wide pit stop window, which opens up a number of tactical possibilities.”

FREE PRACTICE 1 – TOP 3 TIMES
DRIVER 		TIME 	  COMPOUND
Vettel 		1m39.006s ULTRASOFT NEW
Hamilton	1m39.126s ULTRASOFT NEW
Verstappen 	1m39.154s ULTRASOFT NEW

FREE PRACTICE 2 – TOP 3 TIMES
DRIVER 		TIME 	  COMPOUND
Hamilton 	1m37.877s ULTRASOFT NEW
Vettel		1m38.026s ULTRASOFT NEW
Ricciardo 	1m38.180s ULTRASOFT NEW

FP1 - BEST TIME BY COMPOUND
COMPOUND 	DRIVER 	   TIME
SOFT 		Hamilton   1m41.135s
SUPERSOFT	Verstappen 1m40.514s
ULTRASOFT 	Vettel     1m39.006s

FP2 - BEST TIME BY COMPOUND
COMPOUND 	DRIVER 	   TIME
SOFT 		- 	   -
SUPERSOFT	Hamilton   1m38.912s
ULTRASOFT 	Hamilton   1m37.877s

MOST LAPS BY COMPOUND SO FAR
COMPOUND 	DRIVER 	   LAPS
SOFT 		Stroll 	   13
SUPERSOFT	Ericsson   32
ULTRASOFT 	Wehrlein   29

TYRE STATISTICS OF THE DAY
			SOFT	SUPER	ULTRA
Kms driven* 		355 	2315 	3904
Sets used overall**	7	27	50

* The above number gives the total amount of kilometres
driven in FP1 and FP2 today, all drivers combined.
** Per compound, all drivers combined.