Hamilton stays ahead in practice at Yas Marina

2014 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix second practice

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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.

Pos.No.DriverCarBest lapGapLaps
144Lewis HamiltonMercedes1’42.11334
26Nico RosbergMercedes1’42.1960.08336
320Kevin MagnussenMcLaren-Mercedes1’42.8950.78236
41Sebastian VettelRed Bull-Renault1’42.9590.84633
577Valtteri BottasWilliams-Mercedes1’43.0700.95734
63Daniel RicciardoRed Bull-Renault1’43.1831.07031
77Kimi RaikkonenFerrari1’43.4891.37632
822Jenson ButtonMcLaren-Mercedes1’43.5031.39022
926Daniil KvyatToro Rosso-Renault1’43.5461.43338
1019Felipe MassaWilliams-Mercedes1’43.5581.44534
1111Sergio PerezForce India-Mercedes1’43.7461.63336
1213Pastor MaldonadoLotus-Renault1’44.0051.89237
1327Nico HulkenbergForce India-Mercedes1’44.0681.95532
1425Jean-Eric VergneToro Rosso-Renault1’44.1572.04438
1521Esteban GutierrezSauber-Ferrari1’44.3162.20337
1699Adrian SutilSauber-Ferrari1’44.7632.65036
178Romain GrosjeanLotus-Renault1’44.9862.87334
1810Kamui KobayashiCaterham-Renault1’45.5053.39238
1946Will StevensCaterham-Renault1’47.0574.94433
2014Fernando AlonsoFerrari2

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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10 comments on “Hamilton stays ahead in practice at Yas Marina”

  1. Hmm, Hamilton quickest in FP1 and FP2…

    That’s Rosberg on pole then :P

    1. True story :-(

      1. Lol, which then means a drs pass by LH and that’s all she wrote.

    2. 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.

  2. The margin the Mercedes pair enjoyed over their rivals was considerably reduced compared to the first sector

    Should this be session? @keithcollantine

  3. today’s picture is Ferrari team around Alonso’s car. what a shame!

  4. 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.

  5. Have McLaren been running their 2015 car?

    1. Not allowed this year. Even the Silverstone ‘photo session’ was a 2014 chassis adapted for the Honda engine.

      1. 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

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