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Formula 1
Abu Dhabi GP
F1 Abu Dhabi GP Live Commentary and Updates - FP1 & FP2
The final Friday sessions of 2022 with Formula 1 free practice from the Yas Marina Circuit
F1’s season finale is here, as the paddock descends on the Yas Marina circuit for the Abu Dhabi GP.
Fresh from a dramatic Brazilian GP, where George Russell led a Mercedes 1-2 in the team’s first win of the season and his maiden F1 victory, all eyes will again be on Red Bull following the team orders row that erupted at Interlagos.
Friday’s action sees the standard pair of practice sessions, with a number of rookie drivers on show in FP1.
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As we type that, Leclerc punches back against his rival for the runner-up spot in the standings and takes back top spot from Perez with a 1m27.917s.
Ocon now nuzzles his way back up to second ahead of Leclerc, but still clear daylight at the top for Perez. Lawson in fourth is the fastest runner on hard tyres, with Albon in fifth the fastest medium runner.
Lawson is giving good feedback to his team over the radio, reporting that he's struggling with the front end in the final sector. Verstappen was giving similar comments about understeer last week in Brazil.
Perez now wrests back the top spot with a 1m28.159s, going half a second quicker than Leclerc's previous best.
With Albon, Lawson, Fittipaldi, Ocon and Kubica all on track, a quarter of the field can say they have raced in the DTM. No idea if that's some sort of record.
Times are tumbling now. Moments after Lawson takes top spot in the Red Bull, still on hard tyres, Leclerc snatches it back again with softs on his Ferrari. The Monegasque lowers the benchmark time to a 1m28.724s.
Hamilton now pushes Lawson back to third on the hard tyres, before both are usurped by the medium-shod Bottas who goes second in his Alfa Romeo.
O'Ward has now made it back to the pits, a desperately unfortunate start to the session for the Mexican.
Perez now goes quickest for Red Bull on a 1m28.926s, using softs, as team-mate Liam Lawson goes third on the hard tyre - despite catching traffic in the final sector.
That is quickly beaten however by drivers using softs. Ocon goes quickest for Alpine with a 1m29.496s ahead of Leclerc's Ferrari on 1m30.180s.
We've had a first laptime on the board from F1's newest race winner, George Russell, who kicks us off with a 1m30.832s on the hard tyres in his Mercedes.
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"Something's going on with the car!" radios a perplexed O'Ward. He's crabbing down the long back straight and appears to be stuck in gear.
McLaren is running a tweaked livery this weekend, and the team is clearly keen to show it off as Ricciardo and O'Ward join the early throng of cars leaving the pits at the start of the session.
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FP1 is underway, and Formula 2 champion Drugovich is keen to get going. He's the first man out on track in the Aston Martin he's taken over from Lance Stroll today.
Just two minutes to go until FP1 gets underway then.
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Last night all 20 drivers joined together to celebrate the end of Sebastian Vettel's F1 career as the four-time champion prepares to start his final GP weekend. Hopefully there won't be any woozy heads today.
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It may be November, but conditions are just as you'd want them to be for the first session of the weekend. Air temperature is currently registering 33.7 °C, and track temperatures are a toasty 47.0 °C.
Drugovich will also be running the #34 on Stroll's Aston, which Nyck de Vries carried when he drove Vettel's car in FP1 at Monza.
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Norris's McLaren will run #28 with O'Ward at the wheel. That's the same number McLaren used when Alex Palou took over Ricciardo's car in Austin.
Therefore, the only teams to field both race drivers in FP1 are Mercedes and AlphaTauri. Could that yield some form of advantage later in the weekend?
Lastly, two FP1 veterans will also be turning out as Haas reserve Pietro Fittipaldi takes over from Mick Schumacher, while Robert Kubica takes over from Zhou Guanyu at Alfa Romeo. The 2008 Canadian Grand Prix winner obviously isn't a rookie - he's the Swiss team's reserve driver. Alfa has already used up its rookie criteria by fielding Zhou in Bahrain and Theo Pourchaire in Austin.
Ferrari test driver Robert Shwartzman subbed for Charles Leclerc in Austin, and the 2021 F2 runner-up will get a second crack at the whip as he takes over Carlos Sainz's machine today.
McLaren is giving its IndyCar ace Pato O'Ward his first taste of an official F1 session, after he turned laps in the post-season rookie test last season. He'll sub for Lando Norris.
Meanwhile, fellow F2 racer Jack Doohan will turn out for Alpine in place of Fernando Alonso, after making his debut in Mexico, while 2022 F2 champion Felipe Drugovich gets his maiden appearance with Aston Martin in place of Lance Stroll.
Lawson is one of several F2 racers to be turning out in this session. Logan Sargeant will log more miles as Williams seeks to help him secure a superlicence for next year, with Nicholas Latifi making way.
At Red Bull, Max Verstappen steps out of his title-winning Red Bull and hands the keys over to Liam Lawson, who previously drove the AlphaTauri at Spa and Mexico.
Abu Dhabi is the last opportunity for teams to satisfy the new rules for 2022 that require teams to give rookies FP1 outings, which means we'll have no less than eight stand-in drivers taking part in the session. Are you ready for the full run-down of swaps? Here goes.
Greetings everybody, welcome to Autosport's live coverage of Friday's action at the Yas Marina Circuit in Abu Dhabi. The very last FP1 session of the year will get underway in 20 minutes, stay tuned for all the latest updates.
By: autosport.com
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