Abu Dhabi – Free Practice 1: Hamilton leads a McLaren duo

Unsurprisingly, the first free practice session of the 2012 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix takes place under the sun. In this session, some teams are running their third driver. This is the case for Sahara Force India with Bianchi replacing Di Resta, Bottas taking the wheel from Senna, Ma in the HRT of Narain Karthikeyan, and Giedo van der Garde at Caterham in place of Petrov, while at Marussia, Max Chilton makes his first official outing at the wheel of an F1 car. Chilton is the first to set a time after 15 minutes of practice: 2:27.380 for the Englishman.

Not much happens in the first part of this session. After 30 minutes, only three drivers have recorded a lap time, the best being set by Jean-Eric Vergne at 1:48.885. He is ahead of Chilton and Ma. The Frenchman improves to 1:46.708 while Maldonado completes a lap in 1:47.847. Bottas then improves the time and leads the session halfway through with a lap time of 1:45.602, ahead of Pérez and Rosberg.

Schumacher secures the best time with 1:45.309 ahead of Bottas, who improves his own time, and Jules Bianchi, who positions his Force India in the Top 3. Further back, Ma goes ahead of Chilton.

For his first flying lap, Alonso immediately puts himself ahead of everyone. 1:45.099 for the Ferrari driver who broke the curfew for the first time this season to install new parts on the F2012. At Red Bull, they also introduced some upgrades on the RB8, notably on the front wing, with some parts covered in green paint to analyze the airflow on this aerodynamic appendage.

Hamilton signs a 1:44.001 ahead of his teammate and Vettel, more than a second ahead of Fernando Alonso. Hamilton hits the nail on the head by going well under the 44-minute mark. 1:43.449 for the future Mercedes AMG driver who continues to push and improves by two-tenths a few moments later.

20 minutes from the end, the reference time is therefore 1:43.285 for Hamilton. At Caterham, Van der Garde completed only three laps and didn’t set a time due to a problem with his Renault engine. At the end of the session, Jenson Button closed in on his teammate but was still four-tenths behind the 2008 champion. The two McLarens were the only ones to clock under 1:43 on the Yas Marina circuit. And that remained the case throughout the 90 minutes of the first free practice session of the weekend.

Hamilton sets the fastest time with 1:43.285 ahead of Button, who gets a bit closer to his teammate, and Vettel. Fernando Alonso is 4th. Noteworthy is the strong performance by Bianchi, who is only a tenth off Nico Hülkenberg.

Free Practice 1 Classification of the 2012 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix: