Lewis Hamilton’s bid to win a second world championship this weekend got off to a promising start as he headed both practice sessions.
But Nico Rosberg lapped within a tenth of a second of his team mate and title rival during the second 90 minutes of running on Friday.
The margin the Mercedes pair enjoyed over their rivals was considerably reduced compared to the first session, but they remained seven-tenths of a second quicker than their closest rivals – Kevin Magnussen’s McLaren. He tried a new front wing on his MP4-29, but team mate Jenson Button’s work was again compromised by technical problems.
Fernando Alonso’s troubles were more serious: as in Brazil, his car came to a stop during the second practice session, but this time he wasn’t even able to set a lap time. The steering wheel went blank on his Ferrari as he rounded turn 19.
The sole remaining Ferrari of Kimi Raikkonen ended the session in seventh place behind the two Red Bulls and Valtteri Bottas. Both Williams drivers avoided a repeat of the bodywork failures they experienced during the first session.
New Caterham driver Will Stevens ended his first day in the car one-and-a-half seconds off team mate Kamui Kobayashi. He explained on the radio that he’d made some mistakes on his run. “I think there’s a lot to come in terms of putting a lap together,” he added.
2014 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix
- Eight different Driver of the Weekend winners in 2014
- Sponsor Watch: 2014 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix
- 2014 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix team radio transcript
- Top ten pictures from the 2014 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix
- Vote for your Abu Dhabi GP Driver of the Weekend
Bradley Downton (@bradley13)
21st November 2014, 14:33
Hmm, Hamilton quickest in FP1 and FP2…
That’s Rosberg on pole then :P
Wil-Liam (@wil-liam)
21st November 2014, 14:41
True story :-(
Robbie (@robbie)
21st November 2014, 15:37
Lol, which then means a drs pass by LH and that’s all she wrote.
DaveW (@dmw)
21st November 2014, 17:29
Recall what their former karting manager said: Rosberg has to work up to the limit, whereas Hamilton can quickly find the braking points and limits of grip. That was a long time ago, but it seems to bear out now 15 years later. Now with the huge amount of telemetry and data available, Rosberg’s approach is perhaps better suited to getting to the qualifying lap. Hamilton goes out in practice and relies on a natural nous from the get go; where Rosberg can look at Hamilton’s data to see the true braking points and corner speeds and work out how to get the car there, and how to improve by a margin. This doesn’t mean that Rosberg is smarter or Hamilton has more “raw” talent. It means that when it’s show time, Hamilton doesn’t have time to look at Rosberg’s data and see where he left a few hundredths on the table. Thus, Rosberg often edges him on Saturday. Obviously when Hamilton has a chance to study the data on Saturday night he usually beats Rosberg on Sunday.
drmouse (@drmouse)
21st November 2014, 14:46
Should this be session? @keithcollantine
Paul2013
21st November 2014, 14:50
today’s picture is Ferrari team around Alonso’s car. what a shame!
Matthew Coyne
21st November 2014, 15:26
Rosbergs race pace was not great and his tyres went off really fast compared to Lewis – he has alot of work to do to sort that out.
Ady (@ady)
21st November 2014, 15:40
Have McLaren been running their 2015 car?
Ian Stephens (@ians)
21st November 2014, 16:16
Not allowed this year. Even the Silverstone ‘photo session’ was a 2014 chassis adapted for the Honda engine.
Ady (@ady)
21st November 2014, 17:45
Actually there is nothing stopping them running a 2015 concept car so long as it conforms to 2014 regs, but if too radical other teams will see and have time to copy.
I mention this because of this article:
http://m.skysports.com/article/formula1//9559195