2020 F1 Abu Dhabi GP Friday practice results
Valtteri Bottas set the fastest time on the opening day of Abu Dhabi Grand Prix practice at Yas Marina for Mercedes on Friday, as teammate Lewis Hamilton returned to Formula 1 after a race away.
Seven-time world champion Hamilton was forced to miss last weekend's Sakhir Grand Prix after testing positive for COVID-19, one day after his victory in Bahrain. He since returned two negative test results, fulfilling the entry requirements to make his comeback.
In FP1, Red Bull’s Max Verstappen pipped Bottas for the fastest time by 0.034s with a laptime of 1m37.378s. Renault’s Esteban Ocon was over a second off their pace in third, but fractions clear of the second Red Bull of Alex Albon.
Hamilton was fifth fastest, setting his quickest time on the hard tyre, beating both Racing Points of Lance Stroll and Sakhir GP winner Sergio Perez.
Hamilton’s Sakhir stand-in George Russell was 16th for Williams, 3s off the pace of the Mercedes he drove last weekend. Robert Kubica returned to F1 for Alfa Romeo again, and was 15th fastest, while FIA F2 champion Mick Schumacher made his FP1 debut for Haas, ending the session 18th quickest.
In FP2, once Pirelli’s 2021 prototype rubber was used by every team early on, Bottas set the pace on the regular medium tyre of 1m36.276s, two tenths quicker than Hamilton.
Hamilton then set 1m36.097s on softs, but it was deleted for exceeding track limits at the final corner. Bottas had a big moment on his soft-tyre run, while Verstappen had to abort his due to traffic, but not before he’d set the fastest first sector.
Verstappen ended the session third, 0.77s off the pace, ahead of Albon, Lando Norris (McLaren), Ocon, Perez and Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc.
There were late dramas as Russell suffered a failure in the rear-end of his Williams, and Kimi Raikkonen’s Alfa Romeo suffered a serious conflagration which caused a red flag.
F1 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix Free Practice 1 results
| Cla | Driver | Chassis | Engine | Laps | Time | Gap | Interval | km/h | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  Max Verstappen |  | Red Bull | Honda | 26 | 1'37.378 | 205.327 | ||
| 2 |  Valtteri Bottas |  | Mercedes | Mercedes | 32 | 1'37.412 | 0.034 | 0.034 | 205.256 |
| 3 |  Esteban Ocon |  | Renault | Renault | 34 | 1'38.515 | 1.137 | 1.103 | 202.957 |
| 4 |  Alex Albon |  | Red Bull | Honda | 25 | 1'38.547 | 1.169 | 0.032 | 202.892 |
| 5 |  Lewis Hamilton |  | Mercedes | Mercedes | 24 | 1'38.744 | 1.366 | 0.197 | 202.487 |
| 6 |  Lance Stroll |  | Racing Point | Mercedes | 25 | 1'38.831 | 1.453 | 0.087 | 202.308 |
| 7 |  Sergio Perez | | Racing Point | Mercedes | 25 | 1'38.956 | 1.578 | 0.125 | 202.053 |
| 8 |  Daniil Kvyat |  | AlphaTauri | Honda | 27 | 1'39.150 | 1.772 | 0.194 | 201.658 |
| 9 | Pierre Gasly |  | AlphaTauri | Honda | 30 | 1'39.160 | 1.782 | 0.010 | 201.637 |
| 10 | Kimi Raikkonen |  | Alfa Romeo | Ferrari | 22 | 1'39.199 | 1.821 | 0.039 | 201.558 |
| 11 |  Carlos Sainz Jr. |  | McLaren | Renault | 27 | 1'39.330 | 1.952 | 0.131 | 201.292 |
| 12 |  Charles Leclerc |  | Ferrari | Ferrari | 25 | 1'39.344 | 1.966 | 0.014 | 201.264 |
| 13 | Lando Norris | | McLaren | Renault | 28 | 1'39.352 | 1.974 | 0.008 | 201.248 |
| 14 |  Sebastian Vettel |  | Ferrari | Ferrari | 19 | 1'39.670 | 2.292 | 0.318 | 200.605 |
| 15 |  Robert Kubica |  | Alfa Romeo | Ferrari | 19 | 1'39.905 | 2.527 | 0.235 | 200.134 |
| 16 | George Russell |  | Williams | Mercedes | 24 | 1'40.446 | 3.068 | 0.541 | 199.056 |
| 17 | Nicholas Latifi |  | Williams | Mercedes | 27 | 1'41.063 | 3.685 | 0.617 | 197.840 |
| 18 | Mick Schumacher |  | Haas | Ferrari | 23 | 1'41.235 | 3.857 | 0.172 | 197.504 |
| 19 |  Pietro Fittipaldi |  | Haas | Ferrari | 24 | 1'44.069 | 6.691 | 2.834 | 192.126 |
| 20 |  Daniel Ricciardo |  | Renault | Renault | 3 | ||||
| View full results | |||||||||
F1 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix Free Practice 2 results
| Cla | Driver | Chassis | Engine | Laps | Time | Gap | Interval | km/h | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Valtteri Bottas |  | Mercedes | Mercedes | 28 | 1'36.276 | 207.677 | ||
| 2 | Lewis Hamilton | | Mercedes | Mercedes | 30 | 1'36.479 | 0.203 | 0.203 | 207.240 |
| 3 | Max Verstappen | | Red Bull | Honda | 30 | 1'37.046 | 0.770 | 0.567 | 206.030 |
| 4 | Alex Albon |  | Red Bull | Honda | 33 | 1'37.263 | 0.987 | 0.217 | 205.570 |
| 5 | Lando Norris |  | McLaren | Renault | 29 | 1'37.438 | 1.162 | 0.175 | 205.201 |
| 6 | Esteban Ocon | | Renault | Renault | 30 | 1'37.505 | 1.229 | 0.067 | 205.060 |
| 7 | Sergio Perez |  | Racing Point | Mercedes | 35 | 1'37.506 | 1.230 | 0.001 | 205.058 |
| 8 | Charles Leclerc |  | Ferrari | Ferrari | 31 | 1'37.508 | 1.232 | 0.002 | 205.053 |
| 9 | Daniel Ricciardo | | Renault | Renault | 29 | 1'37.508 | 1.232 | 0.000 | 205.053 |
| 10 | Lance Stroll | | Racing Point | Mercedes | 29 | 1'37.560 | 1.284 | 0.052 | 204.944 |
| 11 | Daniil Kvyat |  | AlphaTauri | Honda | 32 | 1'37.596 | 1.320 | 0.036 | 204.869 |
| 12 | Carlos Sainz Jr. |  | McLaren | Renault | 31 | 1'37.616 | 1.340 | 0.020 | 204.827 |
| 13 | Pierre Gasly |  | AlphaTauri | Honda | 32 | 1'37.900 | 1.624 | 0.284 | 204.232 |
| 14 | Kimi Raikkonen |  | Alfa Romeo | Ferrari | 28 | 1'38.068 | 1.792 | 0.168 | 203.883 |
| 15 | Sebastian Vettel |  | Ferrari | Ferrari | 32 | 1'38.198 | 1.922 | 0.130 | 203.613 |
| 16 |  Kevin Magnussen |  | Haas | Ferrari | 34 | 1'38.504 | 2.228 | 0.306 | 202.980 |
| 17 |  Antonio Giovinazzi | | Alfa Romeo | Ferrari | 31 | 1'38.564 | 2.288 | 0.060 | 202.857 |
| 18 | George Russell |  | Williams | Mercedes | 24 | 1'38.817 | 2.541 | 0.253 | 202.337 |
| 19 | Pietro Fittipaldi | | Haas | Ferrari | 25 | 1'39.027 | 2.751 | 0.210 | 201.908 |
| 20 | Nicholas Latifi | | Williams | Mercedes | 31 | 1'39.132 | 2.856 | 0.105 | 201.694 |
| View full results | |||||||||
F1 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix Free Practice as it happened
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About this article
| Series | Formula 1 |
| Event | Abu Dhabi GP |
| Author | Charles Bradley |
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