Lewis Hamilton, P1 - 1:40.403, 3rd; P2 - 1:39.586, 1st
“It was a really positive day for me. The car feels good - our long-run pace doesn’t feel too bad and we seem to be quite competitive. The car feels a lot better than it did at the last race - so I really hope I’ll be able to keep that going throughout the remainder of the Grand Prix weekend.
“The track just got better and better today, so I slowly chipped away at the set-up. The tyres are behaving well - at the last race I had degradation and didn’t have the pace, so it feels much better this weekend. That’s a real positive for me.
“When you come through a Friday without any problems, it definitely makes you feel confident for the rest of the weekend.”
Jenson Button, P1 - 1:40.263, 1st; P2 - 1:39.785, 2nd
“I’m still not entirely happy with the balance - although I’m confident we’ll get to the bottom of it. Nonetheless, the pace of the car is good - Lewis was very quick today - and our long-run pace is very good.
“I was playing around with overtaking on my long run, but I still reckon it’ll be difficult to overtake people in the DRS zones. So I think it’s going to be a bit of a struggle to make moves stick in the race - which means it’s going to be important to qualify up at the front.
Click Here to Read More
Formula 1: Jenson Button Fastest in First Practice at Yas Marina
Formula 1: Abu Dhabi Grand Prix - First Practice Results
Formula 1: Lewis Hamilton Fastest in Second Practice at Yas Marina
Formula 1: Abu Dhabi Grand Prix - Second Practice Results
“It’s tricky around here, but we made some good progress here this afternoon and evening.”
Fernando Alonso, P1 - 1:40.801, 5th; P2 - 1:39.971, 3rd
“Just as was the case in India a fortnight ago, again here in Abu Dhabi, I lost a bit of time: there it was the engine that left me standing at the side of the track and here it was an off-track excursion. It’s not that there’s a particular problem with grip at Turn 1, but if you touch the kerb when braking then you do lose some grip. As for me and Vettel both going off the track at the same point, I saw a lot of similarities: maybe tomorrow, we will try and stay a bit more towards the middle of the track without going so near the limit at this corner! I am annoyed about losing some time, but above all, I am sorry for the mechanics who now have extra work to do to put the car together again. I will try and repay them with a nice lap tomorrow evening in qualifying. I did not have anything new to try today so we concentrated mainly on a comparison of two different levels of aerodynamic downforce and on assessing the new Pirelli tyres for 2012. As usual, it’s difficult to say where we are compared to everyone else, because there are always plenty of unknowns on Friday. I don’t think I’ll be fighting for pole or the win, but the first impressions are that we are in ever so slightly better shape than we had expected to be going into this weekend. The track had improved by the second session, which was partly down to the lower temperature: at lunchtime it was really hot on the track! With the Soft tyre we definitely feel comfortable, but also with the harder compound, we did not look so bad, as indeed we have seen in the last few races.”
Felipe Massa, P1 - 1:41.260, 6th; P2 - 1:39.980, 4th
“They were two good sessions for me, but that does not mean much in terms of qualifying. Two weeks ago in India, I was fastest on Friday afternoon and then things went the way they did. Having said that, I am reasonably happy with how the last two races panned out in terms of speed and pace. Obviously, I can’t say the same about the final results, because something always happened to me in the races: let’s hope it will be different this time. I am sure it will: the important thing is to continue doing a good job, always being quick and then things will sort themselves out. The helmet livery? The design celebrates the 20th anniversary of Ayrton Senna taking his third title and the helmet will be auctioned to raise money for the Foundation that bears his name: I am honoured to be able to do something to support all the initiatives they work on. The vibrating front wing? Honestly, while I’m driving I am not aware of anything, the car always behaves the same way without any problems.”
Mark Webber, P1 - 1:40.389, 2nd; P2 - 1:40.104, 5th
“It looks easy to get it wrong on Turn One, when you see guys of the calibre of Alonso and Vettel getting out of shape, then you give a bit of a margin and come back up to it. All in all, it was a pretty good afternoon and night for us and we got all the laps done that we needed to. I won’t predict anything, as we know on Sunday that things can change, but we’re going pretty well and I feel happy with the car.”
Sebastian Vettel, P1 - 1:40.755, 4th; P2 - 1:40.132, 6th
“I had an incident in P2. It wasn’t too much, I lost the car on the entrance to Turn One. I think I was too wide and too far on to the kerb, so I lost the rear and couldn’t catch the car anymore. I was lucky to get out again at the end of P2; there wasn’t much damage apart from the front wing. If you just touch the kerb there, then it’s fine, but I went too far on to it. Looking to the car, we are there or thereabouts - but it will be tight tomorrow I think.”
Michael Schumacher, P1 - 1:43.389, 15th; P2 - 1:40.553, 7th
“I am reasonably happy with our work in the two sessions today, and considering that we managed to work the car well, I’d say it was a good day. Obviously we have our limits to operate within, but we maximised what we have in hand, and the car felt very good. We now have to see how we can transform this work into our weekend and maybe grab some more points on a track which today was very consistent.”
Adrian Sutil, P1 - 1:41.340, 7th; P2 - 1:40.951, 8th
“The track had very low grip to begin with, but we found quite a good baseline starting point with the car right away. The main focus was on improving the traction out of the low-speed corners because that’s what this circuit is all about. We also worked a lot on finding the optimum wing levels and seem to have found a good solution so far. As for the tyres, we did most of the work in the second session to simulate the conditions we will get on Sunday evening. Both tyres seem to be performing well with quite low degradation.”
Paul di Resta, P1 - 1:42.151, 9th; P2 - 1:41.021, 9th
“I think looking at where we’ve ended up we should be pretty happy with today’s work. In the first session I was struggling with rear grip and it wasn’t easy to lean on the car. There was also quite a lot of front locking. But in the second session we started to get on top of those issues and got quite close to a decent set-up. I think we can still make some steps tomorrow and look to find more low-speed stability, but overall we’re not in bad shape.”
Kamui Kobayashi, P1 - 1:44.484, 17th; P2 - 1:41.490, 10th
“It is quite difficult to compare the two practice sessions, as the difference in track temperature is over ten degrees Celsius. This also means that in tomorrow’s third free practice session we can’t learn much for qualifying because again we will have this difference in track temperature. However, in general the track was quite slippery. We are pretty much okay at high speed, but we need to improve in slow corners and in terms of braking stability.”
| 
|