2012 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix Friday practice one

5 min: Vettel does likewise and is out there to join the Australian.

4 min: Webber brought his RB8 into the pitbox, completed a burnout to lay some rubber down and has rejoined the circuit.

4 min: Hamilton pits his McLaren for the team to check over the car.

4 min: Rosberg joins his team-mate on track, with more than half the field already back in at the end of one lap.

3 min: Michael Schumacher is on track for a checking run. Last weekend the Mercedes drivers completed two laps to kick-start the event.

3 min: Alonso and Massa are now on track to check over the Ferraris.

2 min: Vergne is the first to complete his installation lap. He brings the Toro Rosso back in for checks.

1 min: Bianchi, Bottas, Hulkenberg, Webber, Maldonado, Ricciardo, Vettel and de la Rosa are also on track to check the basic functions on their cars.

1 min: Hua is on track to run through an installation check for HRT.

1 min: Vergne - recently announced with team-mate Ricciardo at Toro Rosso for 2013 - heads out to check over this year's car.

0 min: While Ma Qing Hua gets another turn at the controls of the HRT, as Narain Karthikeyan watches on from the pitwall.

0 min: Raikkonen is the first man out of the pits today in his Lotus.

0 min: The practice session is underway.

The impressive Valtteri Bottas is again at the wheel of the Williams, in place of Bruno Senna.

Jules Bianchi will gather data for Force India, while Paul di Resta sits out the first session.

Air and track temperature are one click higher than anticipated, with an ambient of 32 Celsius and 43 degrees down on the circuit.

Giedo van der Garde is having another outing for Caterham, this time replacing Petrov for a chance to test the upgraded car.

Tyres

Soft and medium compound tyres are on offer this weekend.

"We know that the combination of the medium and the soft tyre works extremely well here," said Pirelli motorsport director Paul Hembery.

"With the teams also having plenty of data about the circuit characteristics, they should be in a strong position to construct some race strategies that will make a real difference to the outcome of the weekend."

Max Chilton makes his race weekend debut for Marussia here, taking over from Pic for the first session.

Conditions are fine and dry around Abu Dhabi this afternoon, with blue skies and plenty of strong sunshine for this first session.

A light breeze is blowing from the north, while air temperature is up around today's projected maximum of 31 degrees. We expect a maximum track temperature of approximately 42 Celsius during practice one, before the values begin to dip during this evening's twilight session.

Here's how the championship tables look with three rounds to go: World Championship standings, round 17: Drivers: Constructors: 1. Vettel 240 1. Red Bull-Renault 407 2. Alonso 227 2. Ferrari 316 3. Raikkonen 173 3. McLaren-Mercedes 306 4. Webber 167 4. Lotus-Renault 263 5. Hamilton 165 5. Mercedes 136 6. Button 141 6. Sauber-Ferrari 116 7. Rosberg 93 7. Force India-Mercedes 93 8. Grosjean 90 8. Williams-Renault 59

Vettel

Hello and welcome to AUTOSPORT Live for coverage and rolling updates from round 18 of this year's FIA Formula 1 world championship - the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix weekend at the 5.554km Yas Marina circuit.

Sebastian Vettel arrives in the Middle East on a staggering run of form that is making him look difficult to beat. Another victory at the Indian Grand Prix five days ago extended his points lead over Fernando Alonso to 13 and clearly we are down to a two horse title race.

However, Ferrari's performance last weekend was much closer to the flying Red Bull drivers, with Alonso getting in among Vettel and his team-mate Mark Webber. This will give the tifosi some hope, but the Spaniard really does need to keep the pressure on - and if possible try to reverse what will be a concerning trend.

As always, we start the event off with first practice and you can expect the usual round of installation laps and constant speed aero tests, before the teams spend the second half of the 90-minute session finding a solid baseline set-up to use as a platform for the rest of the weekend.