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Abu Dhabi GP: Hamilton stays ahead of Rosberg in FP2

Lewis Hamilton drew first blood in the battle for the Formula 1 title by outpacing Nico Rosberg in Friday practice for the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix

Rosberg was faster in the first part of the session when the field was running on the slower soft-compound Pirellis by over six tenths of a second.

But once the field bolted on the super-softs, it was Hamilton who emerged as the pacesetter, shading Rosberg by 0.144s on his first flier and then improving by almost half-a-tenth on his second attempt.

Rosberg subsequently shaved a tenth off his laptime, but ended up 83 thousandths of a second slower than his Mercedes team-mate.

Both had very brief visits to the run-off during the session as they fought for supremacy, but Mercedes still had a crushing advantage on pace.

Kevin Magnussen was best-of-the rest in third place ahead of Sebastian Vettel, but such was the advantage of Mercedes that they were the only other drivers to better Rosberg's earlier top time on the soft rubber.

Valtteri Bottas was fifth fastest, just under a second off the pace, pipping the second Red Bull of Daniel Ricciardo.

Kimi Raikkonen was seventh fastest for Ferrari, but it was a disappointing session overall for the Scuderia as the second car of Fernando Alonso stopped after two laps with a suspected engine problem.

Jenson Button's running was limited thanks to a hydraulic leak that delayed him early on, but he was able to completed 21 laps and ended up eighth fastest.

Scuderia Toro Rosso driver Daniil Kvyat and Felipe Massa rounded out the top 10.

The lead Force India of Sergio Perez missed out on the top 10 by less than two tenths, with Pastor Maldonado 12th fastest.

With Alonso bottom of the timesheets after not setting a time, the returning Caterhams brought up the rear.

But Kamui Kobayashi was just over half-a-second off the back of the midfield pack.

Behind him, Will Stevens completed 33 laps in the second Caterham and continued his learning curve after a disrupted morning session, ending up within five seconds off the pace.

Pos Driver Car Time Gap Laps
1 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1m42.113s - 35
2 Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1m42.196s 0.083s 37
3 Kevin Magnussen McLaren/Mercedes 1m42.895s 0.782s 37
4 Sebastian Vettel Red Bull/Renault 1m42.959s 0.846s 33
5 Valtteri Bottas Williams/Mercedes 1m43.070s 0.957s 34
6 Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull/Renault 1m43.183s 1.070s 32
7 Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari 1m43.489s 1.376s 33
8 Jenson Button McLaren/Mercedes 1m43.503s 1.390s 23
9 Daniil Kvyat Toro Rosso/Renault 1m43.546s 1.433s 38
10 Felipe Massa Williams/Mercedes 1m43.558s 1.445s 34
11 Sergio Perez Force India/Mercedes 1m43.746s 1.633s 37
12 Pastor Maldonado Lotus/Renault 1m44.005s 1.892s 38
13 Nico Hulkenberg Force India/Mercedes 1m44.068s 1.955s 32
14 Jean-Eric Vergne Toro Rosso/Renault 1m44.157s 2.044s 39
15 Esteban Gutierrez Sauber/Ferrari 1m44.316s 2.203s 38
16 Adrian Sutil Sauber/Ferrari 1m44.763s 2.650s 37
17 Romain Grosjean Lotus/Renault 1m44.986s 2.873s 35
18 Kamui Kobayashi Caterham/Renault 1m45.505s 3.392s 38
19 Will Stevens Caterham/Renault 1m47.057s 4.944s 34
20 Fernando Alonso Ferrari - - 2


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