McLaren
McLaren driver Lewis Hamilton set the fastest time in Friday’s opening practice for this weekend’s season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
Hamilton extended his strong form from the latter part of the season, which had seen him qualify or finish in the top three at six of the past seven races.
With the majority of the field doing more than 20 laps to gather experience on the new Yas Marina circuit, Hamilton set a time of 1 minute, 43.939 seconds to better Formula One champion Jenson Button of Brawn GP by a tenth of a second.
Red Bull driver Sebastian Vettel was third fastest, ahead of Brawn GP’s Rubens Barrichello. They are fighting for second place in the championship, with Vettel two points ahead of the veteran Brazilian. The Canadian Press
BMW Sauber’s Nick Heidfeld was fifth overall, but 0.728secs down, followed closely by Sebastien Buemi in his Toro Rosso and Adrian Sutil for Force India.
Brazilian Grand Prix winner Mark Webber was eighth, with the top 10 completed by Alguersuari and Toyota’s Jarno Trulli.
Heikki Kovalainen was 12th for McLaren on 1m 45.123s, then came the Williams of Nico Rosberg and Kazuki Nakajima on 1m 45.649s and 1m 45.679s respectively, Kimi Raikkonen’s Ferrari on 1m 45.704s, Fernando Alonsos Renault on 1m 45.865s, Vitantonio Liuzzi’s Force India on 1m 46.239s, Giancarlo Fisichella’s Ferrari on 1m 46.267s, Kamui Kobayashi’s Toyota on 1m 46.364s and Romain Grosjean’s Renault on 1m 46.411s. Auto Racing Daily
POS DRIVER ENTRANT TIME 1 Lewis Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes 01:43.9 2 Jenson Button Brawn-Mercedes 01:44.0 3 Sebastian VettelRed Bull-Renault 01:44.2 4 Rubens BarrichelloBrawn-Mercedes 01:44.2 5 Nick Heidfeld BMW Sauber 01:44.7 6 Sebastien Buemi Toro Rosso-Ferrari 01:44.7 7 Adrian Sutil Force India-Mercedes 01:44.7 8 Mark Webber Red Bull-Renault 01:44.8 9 Jaime AlguersuariToro Rosso-Ferrari 01:45.0 10 Jarno Trulli Toyota 01:45.0 11 Robert Kubica BMW Sauber 01:45.0 12 Heikki KovalainenMcLaren-Mercedes 01:45.1 13 Nico Rosberg Williams-Toyota 01:45.6 14 Kazuki Nakajima Williams-Toyota 01:45.7 15 Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari 01:45.7 16 Fernando Alonso Renault 01:45.9 17 Vitantonio LiuzziForce India-Mercedes 01:46.2 18 Giancarlo Fisichella Ferrari 01:46.3 19 Kamui Kobayashi Toyota 01:46.4 20 Romain Grosjean Renault 01:46.4
