Abu Dhabi Grand Prix: Practice One
- Nov 27, 2015
- 2 min read
The final set of practice sessions of the season began this morning with news that Romain Grosjean's car who; Jolyon Palmer who was in for the FP1 session was going to struggle run the entire session due to a water leak from the power unit.
The light and the end of the pitlane went green in the heat of the day and sunlight beating down on the track. Times from this session shouldn't really be read into too much due down to the track condtitions not being fully representitive of when they will go racing on Sunday evening.
All of the teams were treating this FP1 session as more of an extended test session, Daniil Kyvat was the first driver to leave the pitlane, an aero rake was placed on the side of the car. Strangely Kimi Raikkonen's car was carrying some lights under the rear wheels facing rearwards.
As we entered the halfhour mark it was Nico Rosberg who was on top of the time sheets with Lewis Hamilton just a tenth behind. Lewis was complaining of seat position and steering wheel issues in the early part of the session also.
Due to rain on tuesday and lack of running prior to this session; the track conditions were very slippery. Many drivers were suffering with low grip outbraking themselves or running wide.
At the halfway point of the session, very little running was taking place with only Fernando Alonso beng the only man on the circuit.
With one hour gone Hamilton stepped up his game to go top of the session on a 1:43:754.
Times in the last half hour of the session were much slower while teams were doing some race simulation in the cooler temperatures thanks to some cloud cover.
In the last fifteen minutes of the session Jolyon Palmer managed to get out on track after all the issues of his power unit. Palmer finished the session 18th ahead of both Manor's due to lack of track running.
Free Practice Two will be held as the sunsets and the floodlights on the circuit take over. This will be a far more representitve session for everyone with the conditions being more closely matched to the race on Sunday.
Free Practice One Top Ten Timesheet.
1st: Hamilton (Mercedes) 1:43:754
2nd: Rosberg (Mercedes) + 0.141
3rd: Raikkonen (Ferrari) +0.746
4th: Kyvat (Red Bull) + 0.948
5th: Vettel (Ferrari) + 0.988
6th: Hulkenberg (Force India) +0.997
7th: Ricciardo (Red Bull) + 1.139
8th: Perez (Force India) + 1.180
9th: Maldonado (Lotus) + 1.560
10th: Massa (Williams) + 1.679
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