McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button dominated practice for the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix on Friday, while double world champion Sebastian Vettel crunched into the barriers.
Vettel, returning to the Yas Marina circuit a year on from becoming Formula One’s youngest champion, skidded off at turn one with more than half an hour remaining of the second floodlit session.
The Red Bull driver, who has already wrapped up his second title, got back out on track near the end of the 90 minutes, but was powerless to prevent Hamilton ending the day on top of the timesheets, with teammate Jenson Button second in a sweep for McLaren.
Photo: AFP
Hamilton’s time of 1:39.586 seconds was 0.199 seconds faster than Button. The older Briton had been quickest in the opening afternoon daylight session in 1:40.263.
“It was a really positive day for me,” said Hamilton, who has not enjoyed many of those this year.
“The car feels good, our long run pace doesn’t feel too bad and we seem to be quite competitive. The car feels a lot better than it did in the last race,” he said.
Vettel’s impact with the barriers was nothing to concern the team too much, particularly as the 24-year-old has three times this season crashed on Friday before taking pole position on Saturday.
“I think I was too wide and too far on to the curb, so I lost the rear and couldn’t catch the car anymore,” the champion said. “There wasn’t much damage apart from the front wing.”
Ferrari may have been more troubled when Fernando Alonso, also a double champion, then went off at the same turn and clouted the barriers with rather more force.
The Spaniard, who still ended up third fastest, also had a spin in the opening practice.
Vettel’s Australian teammate Mark Webber was second on the Yas Marina timing screens in the first session, but slipped to fifth as night fell.
Some less familiar names also enjoyed a moment in the limelight in opening practice, like Robert Wickens, the first Canadian to appear on track in a Grand Prix weekend since 1997 champion Jacques Villeneuve departed the scene in 2006.
While Wickens replaced Belgian Jerome d’Ambrosio at Virgin Racing for the first session, Frenchmen Jean-Eric Vergne and Romain Grosjean took the wheel at Toro Rosso and Renault respectively.
Wickens was 23rd out of the 24, half a second slower than teammate Timo Glock, but ahead of Rubens Barrichello, who failed to set a time after a problem halted his Williams.
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