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The first free
practice session for the final round of the Formula 1 season, the Abu Dhabi
Grand Prix, featured no fewer than ten “rookie” drivers on track. Best of
the bunch was Brazil’s Felipe Drugovich, the winner of last year’s FIA
Formula 2 Championship who finished the hour second fastest in the Aston
Martin usually driven by Fernando Alonso. His best time of 1’26”360 was a
bit less than three tenths slower than George Russell in the Mercedes, who
topped the time sheet in 1’26”072. Five of the rookies - Doohan, Hadjar,
Vesti, Pourchaire and Bearman – had a particularly busy day as they also had
to tackle free practice and qualifying for the final Formula 2 round of the
season.
The session was interrupted twice by red flags. The first was brought out
when Carlos Sainz crashed into the barriers at turn 3 just over eight
minutes into the session. The track was open again after 27 minutes, but
only for a couple of minutes before Nico Hulkenberg also hit the barriers
after spinning on the exit to the first corner. The session resumed with 16
minutes to go. Quickest was Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) in 1’24”809, 43
thousandths better than Lando Norris, second for McLaren.
THE DAY ON
TRACK:
It was a yellow and red-tinged day given that only 21 laps were completed on
the C3 compound, the hardest available here in Yas Marina, all those laps
courtesy of Alfa Romeo: 9 for Zhou in FP1 and 12 for Bottas in FP2.
The track was only open for just under 27 minutes in the second session and
very few drivers ran with a high fuel load. The longest stint of all came
from Sargeant (12 consecutive laps on a set of Mediums), while the hardest
working on the Soft were Leclerc, Zhou and Stroll, all doing 11 consecutive
laps. In fact, only Piastri, Magnussen and Albon got into double figures,
doing ten laps each on the Medium.
Simone Berra: Chief Engineer:
“Today’s sessions left many questions unanswered, at least in terms of the
tyres. Despite this weekend running to the “classic” format, the first
session was rather unusual, given that half the cars on track were entrusted
to the young drivers, who by the very nature of their role, would have run
to a slightly different programme to that which their regular race drivers
would have undertaken. The second session, starting as the sun began to set
with temperatures that were therefore dropping to ten degrees lower than in
the first one, was twice interrupted, making it even more complicated to
draw any conclusions relating to tyre behaviour. The numbers sum it up, with
a total of 318 laps covered in FP2 today, compared to 543 last year.
Given the choices made by the teams, the Hard, which was used by just one
team, would seem to be the clear favourite for the race. From what we have
seen, there was a bit of graining, but the track is rubbering-in quite
quickly so this situation could improve. The many laps completed on the Soft
and Medium have at least allowed us to establish the gap between these two
compounds at around half a second." |
