Hamilton sets the pace in FP1 at Abu Dhabi

Hamilton sets the pace in FP1 at Abu Dhabi

This morning we saw championship leader Lewis Hamilton setting the pace in FP1 in Abu Dhabi ahead of his team mate and championship rival Nico Rosberg and Fernando Alonso who was third fastest.

During FP1, we saw Adderly Fong, Esteban Ocon and Will Stevens making their F1 debuts F1 for Sauber, Lotus and Caterham in the session and gaining valuable experience on the Yas Marina circuit and also in their respective cars.

In the session, we saw both of the Williams drivers not taking part in the final part of the session. This was due to Valtteri Bottas while running in the session suffering from a suspected connector pack failure (in other words the side pod coming off) and also Felipe Massa feeling that the sidepod was also loose for him.

The Williams Martini Racing F1 Team announced via their Twitter page that they decided not to run to fix the issue ready to participate in FP2.

It was also announced during the session that Romain Grosjean will have to start from the pitlane due to changing his sixth power unit. Grosjean now joins Danill Kvyat as the second driver to change his sixth power unit in a season.

At the end of the session, all of the drivers will be testing another virtual Safety Car method. The FIA have created a “slow down” area where the drivers will have to slow down to 80kmph and will have to stick to that speed until the FIA are satisfied that they have slowed down enough.

But it was Lewis Hamilton who topped the timesheets with a lap time of 1.43.476 ahead of his team mate Nico Rosberg who was 0.133 seconds behind him.

Fernando Alonso was third fastest in the session
and was 1.708 seconds behind the Mercedes drivers.

Sebastian Vettel finished the session in fourth place ahead of his team mate Daniel Ricciardo in fifth place, Jean-Eric Vergne in sixth place who finished ahead of his team mate Daniil Kvyat. Valtteri Bottas ended the session in eighth place despite his problems with his connector plate failure in the session ahead of the Force India drivers of Sergio Perez and Nico Hulkenberg who rounded off the top ten fnishers.

Kevin Magnussen ended the session in eleventh place ahead of Kimi Raikkonen in twelfth place, Felipe Massa in thirteenth and Esteban Gutierrez in fourteenth place. Pastor Maldonado finished the session in fifteenth place ahead of Lotus development driver Esteban Ocon who impressed during the session in finish in sixteenth place.

As we head into the latter stages of the session, Jenson Button finished the session in seventeenth place ahead of Kamui Kobayashi in eighteenth place and F1 debutees Adderly Fong in nineteenth place and Will Stevens in twentieth place.

The classification of FP1 at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix is as follows below:-

Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1.43.476
Nico Rosberg Mercedes 0.133s
Fernando Alonso Ferrari 1.708s
Sebastian Vettel Red Bull-Renault 1.858s
Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull-Renault 1.885s
Jean-Eric Vergne Toro Rosso 2.242s
Daniil Kvyat Toro Rosso 2.339s
Valtteri Bottas Williams-Mercedes 2.451s
Sergio Perez Force India-Mercedes 2.501s
Nico Hulkenberg Force India-Mercedes 2.554s
Kevin Magnussen McLaren-Mercedes 2.573s
Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari 2.655s
Esteban Gutierrez Sauber-Ferrari 3.080s
Pastor Maldonado Lotus-Renault 3.235s
Esteban Ocon Lotus-Renault 3.590s
Jenson Button McLaren-Mercedes 3.759s
Kamui Kobayashi Caterham-Renault 4.495s
Adderly Fong Sauber-Ferrari 4.793s
Will Stevens Caterham-Renault 7.208s

Sarah Jones