F1 Abu Dhabi GP Live Commentary and Updates - FP3 & Qualifying
Saturday's action from the 22nd round of the 2023 Formula 1 season.
Live AppleTV Race Audio
A disrupted Friday in Abu Dhabi has left teams with little data ahead of a crucial final qualifying session of the year.
Second practice saw only 23 minutes of action after crashes for Carlos Sainz and Nico Hulkenberg, with Charles Leclerc ending the hour fastest. This followed an FP1 session that saw 10 rookie drivers replace regular runners, with both Max Verstappen, Sergio Perez and Lewis Hamilton among those watching from the sidelines.
Conditions in FP3 are far from representative of those that will be seen in either qualifying or the grand prix, meaning teams are likely to enter qualifying without complete certainty on set-up directions.
FP3 begins at 10:30am GMT with qualifying following at 2pm GMT.
The Ferrari pair have finally switched to the soft tyres, having sunk to the bottom of the times during their medium runs, as Leclerc surges to fifth place but is 0.681s off Russell's leading effort.
Verstappen, with his car changes applied, winds up for a quick lap, but after getting understeer and then a snappy slide through Turn 5 he gives up on the lap.
Norris goes second, sliding out of the final corner, to miss out on top spot by 0.095s. Piastri takes third but nearly four-tenths a second off his team-mate.
Bottas, on his second attempt on these softs, goes 11th quickest. Elsewhere, Verstappen still is not happy with his Red Bull car set-up, with further work to his front suspension under way.
Lap times! Albon goes second on fresh softs, a tenth off Russell's earlier leading effort, with Ocon third, Sargeant fourth and Gasly fifth. So much action.
Alonso nips into the pits to do a burnout on Aston's pitstop box in order to lay down rubber for the weekend ahead. Oh yes, all the thrills and spills of practice today.
Both Williams move up the order, Albon eighth and Sargeant ninth, to show their pace in the midfield. The second Williams seat next to Albon still hasn't been confirmed for 2024, so Sargeant will really want a solid showing to cement his spot.
Not Russell, though, who puts in a 1m24.829s to extend his advantage over the rest. The Brit was one of the few grand prix drivers who also ran in FP1 so he has a bit of an advantage.
Both Astons push into the top four, making a strong bid to qualify for Europe late in the season. Football's back this weekend and we are a bit excited, OK?
Norris takes his stint in second on the timesheet, pushing off Stroll who was briefly in that slot, but still nobody can get close to the Red Bull. Speaking of, Verstappen heads out for the first time in this session.
The Astons are back out, switching from the hards for softs, to put them more in line with the rest of the runners, while Gasly goes second quickest for Alpine.
Hamilton is straight into his workload, while the Astons trundle through the pits after an out-lap, as the Mercedes driver sets the first timed lap of the session with a 1m26.612s.
This session, ordinarily, is a pretty tame affair with very little action in the opening stage due to conditions not being representative for qualifying and the race. But with a lack of Friday running, could it be one to make up for lost time in?
There's one small change to look out for from Friday practice, overtaking in the pitlane exit has been banned for the rest of the weekend, much to Verstappen's chagrin:
Yesterday was an odd day (well, not as strange as the opening day of Las Vegas) but with 10 rookies in action in FP1 and then over half of FP2 taken up by red flags, there wasn't a great amount of insight into how the weekend will play out.
