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Formula 1 Abu Dhabi GP

2014 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix Friday - Practice

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Maldonado skates over the kerbs at the penultimate corner onto the dusty exit.
Slow-motion replays show Hamilton is giving the chicane kerbs plenty of welly. He's doing his best to make Yas Marina look dramatic.
Hamilton makes it a Merc one-two at the top but he's some way off his team-mate. It's only a 1m43.677s for the championship leader.
Vettel, who had gone fourth, is now second on a 1m44.478s. The Mercedes seem untouchable but behind it's looking exceptionally close.
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"This lap is going nowhere," reckons Hulkenberg, who's given a choice or pitting or doing a cool-down then trying again.
Stopwatch
Rosberg goes quickest, a 1m43.024s.
The two Mercedes have trundled down the pitlane and onto the circuit. And surprise surprise, Rosberg's purple in sector one.
Stopwatch
Magnussen has taken over in P1, but only just. The Dane's best, a 1m44.895s, just shades Kvyat's 1m44.949s.

Perez, meanwhile, is third on a 1m44.950s!
Perez, Maldonado, Raikkonen, Vettel and Gutierrez emerge for the first time in this session.
Kvyat tells Toro Rosso he's aborting his lap because he locked up and went wide at Turn 1.
Massa has a lock-up into one of the chicane complexes, gets out of shape over the kerbs but gathers it all up.
Stopwatch
Massa and Hulkenberg have outpaced Vergne already, with the Williams occupying top spot now on a 1m45.055s.
Stopwatch
And Vergne goes top comfortably, 1m45.697s for the Toro Rosso man. Magnussen is behind him on a 1m45.720s.

Grosjean, Stevens and Kobayashi have recorded tentative times.
Low sunset over the circuit now. By the end of this practice session it will be 6.30pm local time, it'll be properly dark and we can all appreciate the twinkly hotel lights.
A pretty even split of cars in the garages and on track. Grosjean, Vergne, Magnussen, Kobayashi, Massa, Hulkenberg and Kvyat are all circulating.
Stopwatch
The first time of the session is set by Sutil's Sauber, which completes the Abu Dhabi circuit in 1m47.412s.
Sutil locks up into Turn 1 but holds it together without running too wide.
Half a dozen cars on track immediately, the rest holding fire. Sutil and Stevens straight onto second laps.
Sauber tells Sutil it wouldn't hurt to push the tyres a bit more to get temperatures up before his quick lap.
Adrian Sutil and Will Stevens kick off FP2.
Green flag
And the session begins.
Welcome back to AUTOSPORT Live as the sun sets over Yas Marina and the F1 teams prepare to begin practice two.
Breaking news
Here's the full report on that session from JAMES ROBERTS, plus the complete results rundown:

Abu Dhabi Grand Prix practice one report

We'll resume live coverage for practice two from 1pm UK time.
And the top, predictably headed by Mercedes' title protagonists. They dominated, but it was rather close behind:

1 Hamilton 1m43.476s
2 Rosberg 1m43.609s
3 Alonso 1m45.184s
4 Vettel 1m45.334s
5 Ricciardo 1m45.361s
6 Vergne 1m45.718s
7 Kvyat 1m45.835s
8 Bottas 1m45.913s
9 Perez 1m45.983s
10 Hulkenberg 1m46.030s.
Ferrari back to Raikkonen: "We couldn't see anything, but we'll check".
"So what happened under braking? The car just pulled massively left and then right again," says Raikkonen.
This is the order after what felt at times like a laboured 90 minutes, starting with the bottom half:

11 Magnussen
12 Raikkonen
13 Massa
14 Gutierrez
15 Maldonado
16 Ocon
17 Button
18 Kobayashi
19 Fong
20 Stevens
Chequered flag is out and the opening session is over.
Stevens is into the 1m50s, 1m50.684s, as Kobayashi gets himself ahead of Fong.
Vettel's getting happier, he tells Red Bull that "clutch 13 is better for downshifts."
Stevens, meanwhile, has lowered his best to a 1m51.655s. The rate of progress has slowed, but he is still getting quicker.
Gutierrez improves. The Mexican goes one better and takes 14th on a 1m46.571s. He's 1.7s quicker than session rookie Fong in the other Sauber.
Raikkonen, 12th, improves his middle sector but falls short of his best. That's about as exciting as the rest of the order has been in the closing stages of FP1.
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Red Bull reassures Vettel that "people are struggling to be consistent, so keep doing what you're doing, it's good".
There's been a lot of radio traffic between Vettel and Red Bull over his gearshifts today and now he's just calling downshifts "horrible".
1m52.150s by Stevens, who is now 4s behind team-mate Kobayashi.
Another improvement by Britain's newest F1 driver (1m53.475s), who is the only person setting personal bests in any sense at the moment.
Stevens is the only real source of entertainment right now, he improves to 1m55.150s.
Vergne is also out of action at the moment, telling TV crews his Toro Rosso - which is sixth quickest - has battery trouble.
Stevens gets his first official F1 timed laps on the board. He's 20th, unsurprisingly, on a cautious 2m01.423s.

By: AUTOSPORT staff, Scott Mitchell, Pablo Elizalde

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