Abu Dhabi Grand Prix: Practice One Results

Lewis Hamilton gets the season finale up and running by setting the fastest time in the first Practice session at the Yas Marina Circuit. The Brit had title rival Nico Rosberg battling with him but Hamilton prevailed.

Practice One

Mercedes enjoyed a dominant opening session as they set the pace wih Ferrari's Fernando Alonso being a further 1.7 seconds behind Hamilton. Mercedes already look very strong and many would be excused for assuming that a Silver Arrows driver is to win on Sunday. Their dominance wasn't a surprise as Hamilton and Rosberg fight it out in the controversial double points finale.

Many would expect Williams to be behind the Mercedes drivers, they have been on Row Two of the grid for the last two races running. In a rather odd occurance, both Williams cars almost simutaneously had a problem with their sidepods, Felipe Massa's was loose in the pits and Valterri Bottas' fell off on track. Head of Vehicle Performance Rob Smedley said at the end of the session 'we've understood what went wrong and what we need to do.'

There were many debutants in P1 here, European F3 Champion Eseban Ocon was given an outing by Lotus, while Sauber allowed Hong Kong racer Adderly Fong to race ther car in P1. However, the headline was that Brit Will Stevens was given the second race seat at the returning Caterham team this weekend, supposedly paying £500,000 to drive this weekend. Ocon ended the session highest in 16th, Fong finished 19th with Stevens in 20th after his Caterham had issues.

Practice One Results