McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton set the pace in practice for the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix while double world champion Sebastian Vettel crunched into the barriers.
Vettel, returning to the Yas Marina circuit a year on from becoming Formula One’s youngest champion, skidded off at turn one with more than half an hour remaining of the second floodlit session.
The Red Bull driver, who has already wrapped up his second title, was powerless to prevent Hamilton ending the day on top of the timesheets and team mate Jenson Button second in a Friday sweep for McLaren.
Ferrari may have been more troubled when Fernando Alonso, also a double champion, then went off at the same turn and clouted the barriers with rather more force.
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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
The Spaniard, who still ended up third fastest, also had a spin in the opening practice. Yahoo! Eurosport UK
Ferrari’s Felipe Massa had worked down to 1m 39.980s for fourth and Webber recovered from a spin to post 1m 40.104s.
Michael Schumacher spent a lot of time off the official track and in the colourful run-off areas, but lapped his Mercedes seventh fastest in 1m 40.553s, ahead of the Force Indias of Adrian Sutil and Paul di Resta on 1m 40.951s and 1m 41.021s respectively.
Behind them, Kamui Kobayashi led Sauber team mate Sergio Perez, 1m 41.490s to 1m 41.565s, with Sebastien Buemi 12th for Toro Rosso on 1m 41.680s ahead of Vitaly Petrov in the lead Renault on 1m 41.947s, Toro Rosso’s Jaime Alguersuari on 1m 41.983s, Renault’s Bruno Senna on 1m 42.369s, and the Williamses of Rubens Barrichello and Pastor Maldonado on 1m 42.798s and 1m 42.910s respectively.
Heikki Kovalainen continued to lead the Lotus brigade with 1m 43.562s to Jarno Trulli’s 1m 44.050s. Nico Rosberg was trying lots of new bits on his Mercedes and thus did not improve on 1m 44.265s for 20th, while Virgin got going after not running their extra soft test tyres this morning; Timo Glock ran 1m 45.486s for 21st ahead of Jerome D’Ambrosio on 1m 46.142s, which left the Belgian just ahead of the HRTs of Tonio Liuzzi and Daniel Ricciardo. Formula 1
Pos No Driver Team Time/Retired 1 3 Lewis Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes 01:39.6 2 4 Jenson Button McLaren-Mercedes 01:39.8 3 5 Fernando Alonso Ferrari 01:40.0 4 6 Felipe Massa Ferrari 01:40.0 5 2 Mark Webber RBR-Renault 01:40.1 6 1 Sebastian Vettel RBR-Renault 01:40.1 7 7 Michael Schumacher Mercedes 01:40.6 8 14 Adrian Sutil Force India-Mercedes 01:41.0 9 15 Paul di Resta Force India-Mercedes 01:41.0 10 16 Kamui Kobayashi Sauber-Ferrari 01:41.5 11 17 Sergio Perez Sauber-Ferrari 01:41.6 12 18 Sebastien Buemi STR-Ferrari 01:41.7 13 10 Vitaly Petrov Renault 01:41.9 14 19 Jaime Alguersuari STR-Ferrari 01:42.0 15 9 Bruno Senna Renault 01:42.4 16 11 Rubens Barrichello Williams-Cosworth 01:42.8 17 12 Pastor Maldonado Williams-Cosworth 01:42.9 18 20 Heikki Kovalainen Lotus-Renault 01:43.6 19 21 Jarno Trulli Lotus-Renault 01:44.1 20 8 Nico Rosberg Mercedes 01:44.3 21 24 Timo Glock Virgin-Cosworth 01:45.5 22 25 Jerome d'Ambrosio Virgin-Cosworth 01:46.1 23 23 Vitantonio Liuzzi HRT-Cosworth 01:46.2 24 22 Daniel Ricciardo HRT-Cosworth 01:46.3
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