Abu Dhabi GP2: Gasly leads ART duo in practice

Gasly, who denied champion Stoffel Vandoorne in the battle for pole in two of the last three events, eased to the top of the first Abu Dhabi session, leading for most of the way.

And it was Vandoorne who followed him closest here, clocking in at just a tenth behind - with the Belgian's teammate Nobuharu Matsushita standing as best of the rest a full half a second down.

Racing Engineering's Alexander Rossi prevented a lockout of the first two rows by DAMS and ART by placing fourth, just ahead of Gasly's teammate Alex Lynn.

Mitch Evans took sixth, ahead of Jordan King, Raffaele Marciello, Norman Nato and Arthur Pic.

Practice results:

Pos.	Driver	Team	Time	Gap
1	Pierre Gasly	DAMS	1'49.349
2	Stoffel Vandoorne	ART Grand Prix	1'49.483	0.134
3	Nobuharu Matsushita	ART Grand Prix	1'49.860	0.511
4	Alexander Rossi	Racing Engineering	1'50.021	0.672
5	Alex Lynn	DAMS	1'50.056	0.707
6	Mitch Evans	RUSSIAN TIME	1'50.270	0.921
7	Jordan King	Racing Engineering	1'50.288	0.939
8	Raffaele Marciello	Trident	1'50.390	1.041
9	Norman Nato	Arden International	1'50.521	1.172
10	Arthur Pic	Campos Racing	1'50.631	1.282
11	Andre Negrao	Arden International	1'50.680	1.331
12	Rio Haryanto	Campos Racing	1'50.795	1.446
13	Sergey Sirotkin	Rapax	1'50.825	1.476
14	Artem Markelov	RUSSIAN TIME	1'51.048	1.699
15	Sergio Canamasas	Daiko Team Lazarus	1'51.057	1.708
16	Dean Stoneman	Carlin	1'51.070	1.721
17	Rene Binder	MP Motorsport	1'51.094	1.745
18	Nicholas Latifi	MP Motorsport	1'51.110	1.761
19	Oliver Rowland	Status Grand Prix	1'51.158	1.809
20	Marlon Stockinger	Status Grand Prix	1'51.504	2.155
21	Daniel de Jong	Trident	1'52.107	2.758
22	Gustav Malja	Rapax	1'52.873	3.524
23	Sean Gelael	Carlin	1'53.403	4.054
24	Nathanael Berthon	Daiko Team Lazarus	1'53.876	4.527