F1 Abu Dhabi GP: Verstappen fastest from Bottas in opening practice

Championship leader Verstappen started the race weekend on the right foot as he finished ahead of Mercedes duo Valtteri Bottas and Lewis Hamilton in FP1, lapping almost two-tenths of a second clear.

Opening practice on Friday afternoon marked the first opportunity for drivers to sample the altered corners at Yas Marina, including the Turn 5 hairpin, the sweeping Turn 9 and the Turn 12-15 complex under the hotel.

Most of the field focused on soft-tyre running throughout the one-hour session, with Verstappen managing to set the early pace during the first runs for Red Bull despite reporting an issue with his steering wheel.

Verstappen told Red Bull that his steering was “right-hand down” and “really annoying” to drive, yet he still managed to outpace Hamilton by two-tenths of a second during the opening runs.

Hamilton was able to improve with his first flying lap of his second run, sitting just 0.055 seconds off Verstappen, only for the Red Bull driver to pull three-tenths of a second clear with a lap of 1m25.009s.

Hamilton worked up another hot lap, but was 0.033s down on his title rival before having the lap deleted after exceeding track limits at the final corner, where a number of drivers got caught and had times scrubbed.

It meant that Mercedes team-mate Bottas ended the session in P2, finishing 0.196s behind Verstappen as the Dutchman’s lap went unbeaten in the closing stages.

Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes W12

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

Hamilton ended up third ahead of Sergio Perez, who was just 0.008s behind the Mercedes driver in fourth place for Red Bull.

Yuki Tsunoda made an impressive start to the weekend by finishing fifth for AlphaTauri, lapping almost half a second quicker than team-mate Pierre Gasly, who was two places further back in seventh.

Tsunoda and Gasly were split by Fernando Alonso, who finished sixth for Alpine in a car that will adorn his recent ‘El Plan’ quote on its rear wing for the race weekend.

Despite taking almost 20 minutes to set his first timed lap in FP1, Charles Leclerc managed to finish the session eighth for Ferrari ahead of team-mate Carlos Sainz Jr, who was ninth. Sainz reported after his first run that his car felt “quite bad”, but was able to improve his lap time in the closing minutes.

Sebastian Vettel rounded out the top 10 for Aston Martin ahead of Esteban Ocon in the second Alpine. Ocon narrowly missed the wall at Turn 14 early in the session, and later got stuck into false neutral, forcing him to slow on-track and complete a fix before getting up to speed again.

Lando Norris finished 12th for McLaren, while Kimi Raikkonen started his final F1 weekend by finishing 13th despite a spin at the reprofiled Turn 9. Team-mate Antonio Giovinazzi finished close behind in P14 ahead of Lance Stroll and Daniel Ricciardo.

Jack Aitken made his first practice session appearance of the season for Williams as he deputised for George Russell. Aitken finished 17th, six-thousandths of a second clear of Nicholas Latifi in the sister Williams car.

Mick Schumacher ended FP1 19th for Haas as team-mate Nikita Mazepin propped up the timesheets in P20, a further half a second off the pace.

F1 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix - FP1 results:

Cla	Driver		Chassis	Laps	Time	Gap
1	Max Verstappen		Red Bull	23	1'25.009
2	Valtteri Bottas		Mercedes	27	1'25.205	0.196
3	Lewis Hamilton		Mercedes	25	1'25.355	0.346
4	Sergio Perez		Red Bull	24	1'25.363	0.354
5	Yuki Tsunoda		AlphaTauri	23	1'25.378	0.369
6	Fernando Alonso		Alpine	26	1'25.625	0.616
7	Pierre Gasly		AlphaTauri	28	1'25.822	0.813
8	Charles Leclerc		Ferrari	20	1'25.846	0.837
9	Carlos Sainz Jr		Ferrari	26	1'25.886	0.877
10	Sebastian Vettel		Aston Martin	26	1'26.007	0.998
11	Esteban Ocon		Alpine	25	1'26.025	1.016
12	Lando Norris		McLaren	26	1'26.123	1.114
13	Kimi Raikkonen		Alfa Romeo	25	1'26.189	1.180
14	Antonio Giovinazzi		Alfa Romeo	25	1'26.409	1.400
15	Lance Stroll		Aston Martin	26	1'26.608	1.599
16	Daniel Ricciardo		McLaren	29	1'26.676	1.667
17	Jack Aitken		Williams	27	1'27.481	2.472
18	Nicholas Latifi		Williams	27	1'27.487	2.478
19	Mick Schumacher		Haas	24	1'27.698	2.689
20	Nikita Mazepin		Haas	22	1'28.305	3.296
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