Yas Marina - Team reaction after Free practices 1 & 2

Red Bull Renault

Sebastian Vettel: “I think we can be happy with today. Overall we got a good lap on the soft tyres, but in general pace the McLaren’s were quick and seem competitive, so they’re the ones we need to look out for and beat. We need to improve the car overnight to qualify as high as we can tomorrow.”

Mark Webber: “We had a KERS issue, which wasn’t the same as last week. It never helps to miss some running on the track during practice, but it’s not a big deal. The track will move around a little bit from where it is now, but not a huge amount; it’s in pretty good shape straightaway. We’ll get it fixed tonight and come back tomorrow.”

Sauber Ferrari

Friday at the Yas Marina Circuit ahead of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix proved to be positive for the Sauber F1 Team, with the feeling things were better than at the same point in the most recent races. Neither Kamui Kobayashi nor Sergio Pérez had any major problems, although at the end of Free Practice 2 the Mexican driver was happier with the balance of his Sauber C31-Ferrari than the Japanese was with his.

Sergio Pérez: “For me it was a good day. We have completed our entire planned programme, so in this respect it was very positive. I am comfortable with the balance of the car and, therefore, I think my position in the second session is pretty much what we are capable of here. This means Q3 is possible.”

Kamui Kobayashi: “I definitely have to work and improve the balance of the car. At the moment it isn’t right in any regard, but it is only day one in Abu Dhabi. The track’s grip normally improves a lot here, which might also help. Today I didn’t really manage to get the tyres to work. However, on long runs I don’t see any issues with either the soft or medium compounds in terms of degradation.”

Giampaolo Dall’Ara, Head of Track Engineering: “We are certainly in better shape today than we were on the Friday in Korea and India, where we struggled more. On the programme side I am quite happy, as we managed to do everything we planned.”

Toro Rosso Ferrari

Daniel Ricciardo: “At the start of FP1, grip or the lack of it was a problem, but we improved the car in between the two sessions and while the short runs went okay, the long run was not as successful. Generally we were off the pace today. The heat? It’s not as bad as Singapore and no problem to deal with.”

Jean-Eric Vergne: “It was nice to be back here, at this circuit that I know better than any other on the Formula 1 calendar, at the wheel of this car. It was an enjoyable day out on track, however, I had a problem on the car this evening which lost me some track time. We seem to suffer from a general lack of performance, which I think stems from not having enough downforce. But we have been in this situation before on a Friday and managed to recover for Saturday and especially for Sunday, so we just need to work hard tonight on seeing how best to move forward.”

Laurent Mekies (Chief Engineer): “It was a difficult and yet productive day for us. We struggled with a general lack of grip, although we made progress on this front between the two sessions. However, we think there is quite a bit more to find before we can achieve a good car balance, which will allow our drivers to push harder than they can at the moment. That is what we will be working on tonight. Jev lost 20 minutes towards the end of the second session, with a front suspension issue. We chose to take our time to check it out thoroughly, before sending him out again at the end. We tend to move forward from Friday to Saturday in terms of balance, so we hope that we can again find some solutions for tomorrow. At least we gathered plenty of data in the first session, so we have something to work with to recover some of the pace that was lacking today.”

Mercedes

Michael Schumacher and Nico Rosberg completed the opening practice sessions today for the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.

— The first practice session took place in sunny conditions with the light fading to darkness during the second session

— Michael and Nico completed 55 laps each of the 5.554 km Yas Marina Circuit

— The team focused on set-up and tyre evaluations, along with work specifically targeted towards the 2013 season

Nico Rosberg: That was a good testing day, and we were able to evaluate a lot of different things. Unfortunately we are still lacking some pace but I hope that we can achieve some points with a good strategy tomorrow and on Sunday. Generally tyre degradation is not as big as last year, so it will be interesting to see how the race turns out.

Michael Schumacher: Today we saw what I would call a ´normal´ Friday - doing certain programmes, changing the set-up and typical data collection work. What we saw at the end of the day is probably where we are, so a pretty realistic picture. At the moment we are driving to finish in the points, and that is what we will target for the weekend. On a different note, it really is impressive and beautiful to drive here, and to drive from daytime into the night really is special.

Ross Brawn: We completed a very useful programme today, and worked through a number of evaluations, particularly looking ahead to next year. The balance of the car looks reasonable after the first two sessions, although there are some areas still in need of improvement. The midfield is very tight again, so we will work on our performance on new tyres to ensure that we can qualify as strongly as possible tomorrow. As always, the facilities here at the Yas Marina Circuit are extremely impressive, and the amount of fans enjoying the unique atmosphere is great to see.

Norbert Haug: A Friday test day for us with no surprises. We ran through our planned programme and at the end of the second session we performed long runs during a race simulation with quite consistent lap times.

HRT Cosworth

The Abu Dhabi Grand Prix got underway today at the spectacular Yas Marina Circuit with the first free practice sessions. In the morning, Ma Qing Hua stepped into the F112 once again and accompanied Pedro de la Rosa for the third time this season in FP1. The Chinese driver’s programme consisted of engine mapping tests and basic set-up of the car to round it off with a longer run where he was able to get more out of the car. Pedro de la Rosa dedicated the entire day to working on the set-up of his car besides testing different configurations to evaluate the cooling of the brakes and both tyre compounds. His teammate, Narain Karthikeyan, who returned in the afternoon session, only had 90 minutes to adapt to an, until today, unknown track but still had no trouble in completing his programme with both tyres.

Pedro de la Rosa: "The initial objective was to find a good car balance and we achieved it quite early on. Then we focused on testing different configurations to see where we were and to optimize the cooling of the brakes. The grip on the track is quite low and the difference between both tyre compounds is smaller than expected. With the mediums the car performs better but on softs the grip is better, although we can still extract more from these. Our pace is good and the tests we carried out on the brakes didn’t go badly, so we’re optimistic although there is room for improvement”.

Narain Karthikeyan: "I didn’t know the track beforehand and it’s more demanding and technical than expected, both physically and for the car because there isn’t much grip. Today’s objective was simply to run as much as possible and tomorrow we will focus on adjusting minor details ahead of qualifying. We’ve still got three sets of tyres, two softs and one medium, and if we make the most of them I’m confident that we’ll be much more competitive”.

Ma Qing Hua: "It was great getting back in the car for a free practice session and the circuit is stunning. I’d never raced here and the conditions weren’t easy because of the heat and low grip. The car was sliding quite a bit and it was difficult to control as we had oversteer. In the first runs we did some engine tests to develop the performance of the car and we also worked on the overall balance. We weren’t aiming to set a time but towards the end I was able to string together a few laps to improve my driving. Overall it was a positive day to work for the team and we accomplished our target”.

Luis Pérez-Sala, Team Principal: "I’m happy with today because everything progressed with no issues and we carried out every test we had programmed. Ma got back in the car and, although he had to work for the team and wasn’t able to push to the maximum, he was under the 107% once again which is very positive. Narain quickly adapted to the circuit in only one session and Pedro did a good job. The tests on the brakes prove that we’re in a better position than in India and that’s positive, but there’s more to extract from the car still”.

McLaren Mercedes

Lewis Hamilton: “Our car looked good in FP1, but FP2 was a little bit more of a challenge for me. It was quite tricky to get a good time from the Option [tyre], so tonight we’ll need to do some work around figuring out how to switch our Options on.

“We anticipated that Sebastian [Vettel] would be quick – and, in FP2, in particular, the Red Bulls duly picked up pace. But, as I say, our car was quick in FP1, and very near the top of the time-sheets all day, so we’ve got plenty to build on.

“We’ll work as hard as we can tonight, as always, and, if we can get ahead of the Red Bulls in qualifying tomorrow, it’ll be a huge bonus for us.”

Jenson Button: “Overall, our car has been working pretty well today – we’re certainly in better shape here than we were in India last weekend. Everything seems to be working well, and the car is fun to drive. There are some small areas where we need to improve, but we know what we need to do.

“It’s going to be crucial to get the Options working well for qualifying tomorrow. I wanted to do plenty of laps during my long run today, since I missed out on quite a lot of long-run running on Friday in Delhi – and that set me back for the rest of the Indian Grand Prix weekend. I’m pleased to report that our car feels reasonably good over a long run here, so now we’re going to be focusing on understanding just how hard we can push the tyre during a long run.

“If our race pace can be as quick as the Red Bulls’, then that’s probably even more important for Sunday’s race than qualifying in front of them on Saturday will be.”

Martin Whitmarsh: “While neither Jenson nor Lewis was unmixedly happy with the balance of his car today, their lap-times and long runs suggest that our base set-up is a promising foundation upon which to build for the rest of the weekend.

“While Lewis encountered some traffic during this evening’s long-run simulation in FP2, Jenson was pleased to get some decent laps under his belt, particularly as a lack of running in Delhi last Friday had somewhat compromised our pace across the whole Indian Grand Prix weekend.

“As always, this evening and tonight, our engineers will be keenly studying the data we gathered today – we feel we’re in the ballpark, so some detail changes should leave us in a good position for what looks set to be an exciting and extremely close-fought qualifying session tomorrow afternoon.”

Williams Renault

Objectives

— Front wing aero evaluations
— Tyre runs and set-up work
— Longer runs in FP2

Mark Gillan, Chief Operations Engineer: We had a good day today with both sessions going well. We continued our on-going development programme from Delhi aimed at better improving our car balance and performance. Our long run pace looks very competitive and we have some more work to be done tonight and in FP3 to help try and further improve our qualifying pace.

Pastor Maldonado: Today was much better as everything came together and I am happy for that. Our long run pace looks quick again, qualifying pace less so but I think we are still looking good when compared to what everyone else was doing today. Qualifying will be important here as well as it’s difficult to overtake. I like this track though and we are looking competitive.

Bruno Senna: It was a tough day today. Tyre degradation was quite high and we had a few braking issues which made it difficult to read what the car was doing. However, we have a lot of data from today to work through ahead of tomorrow. Qualifying in the top ten is possible, as we’ve seen the pace in Pastor’s car, so we’ll be working hard tonight to make further improvements tomorrow.

Valtteri Bottas: I know this track well which made things much easier today as I could immediately get on with my job. After the first run I knew how the car should feel and we were also able to continue some tests from India to gather even more data. Pastor went a little quicker in his final run in FP1, but before that we had identical times so it is good to know I am on the pace, although I still think I could have done more. I like this circuit and the atmosphere in the paddock, and driving on the track underneath the hotel is quite unique.

Marussia Cosworth

The Marussia F1 Team’s Abu Dhabi Grand Prix weekend got off to a positive start today as the team commenced preparations for the only day-into-night ‘twilight’ race on the calendar. FP1 also marked the occasion of Max Chilton’s first taste of race weekend running. The team’s 21 year old Reserve Driver was elevated to the seat of car number #25 for the FP1 session, to provide him with the opportunity to demonstrate his potential and to ensure his preparedness for his reserve role in the remaining three races.

Max’s programme consisted of engine mapping runs early on to ‘get into’ a circuit he knows reasonably well, together with some data collection for some new developments for 2013. The team predicted that the tyre life would be limited, so they planned two main eight lap runs.

Timo’s programme focused on in-depth aero data collection, also for next year’s car.

Charles Pic returned to the cockpit for the FP2 session, when the team reverted to the more typical set-up work, involving low fuel qualifying runs and long run tyre evaluation.

Timo Glock:
“A typical Friday really, although in FP1 I ran some developments for next year. There were a lot of sensors on the car, so while the work was good, the running was a little less straightforward. In FP2 I had some trouble with traffic on the Soft option tyre run; every time, I caught up to Petrov in the last sector which lost me time. We also tried some different set-up options and we have to look at the information we gathered to ensure we have the right one for the rest of the weekend.”

Charles Pic: “It was great to be back in the car at Yas Marina this afternoon. It’s a circuit I like very much and I hope we are able to continue the positive work of India. For the early part of the FP2 session I got up to speed with the track - quite quickly as well - and prepared for qualifying and the race, adjusting to the changing light conditions. We are not where we would like to be yet, so I hope to make a step forward for tomorrow.”

Max Chilton:“My FP1 session went just as well as I could have hoped for and my thanks again to the Marussia F1 Team for making this possible. I haven’t stopped smiling all day. I have been looking forward to this opportunity for a few weeks now, but when the moment came - with all the pressure - I admit that I was a little nervous. I wanted everything to go well and to have as much track time as possible. In the end, due to the tyre life situation, we built up to two longer runs of eight laps each, where I was able to work on some pretty demanding testing items, procedures and systems. On the first run I was very happy to improve immediately - and keep improving. I was hoping to do that again on the second run but unfortunately I was blocked by traffic from a HRT car. There was definitely more to come though and that is the only small frustration in an otherwise memorable day. The team were very supportive and thanks to my engineering team and car crew today, who made me feel right at home.”

John Booth, Team Principal: “A reasonable start to our race weekend here in Abu Dhabi, with three drivers contributing to the overall free practice programme. A word about Max to begin with, as he was making his race weekend running debut. We already had a significant level of confidence in his ability, as we tested him in the summer, but he put in an exemplary performance this morning. We were happy for him as he’s come a long way this year. We were also a little relieved as we wanted him to get a good clean session and everything went very smoothly for him in the end. He coped with all the procedures well and although he was capable of more in terms of overall lap time on that second run, the potential is clearly there.

“Timo’s morning session was much more focused towards 2013 development however this afternoon with his engineers he has tried some quite different set-ups in order to try and correct some of the problems he has had in the last few races. We will need to study these overnight and decide on which direction to go in. Charles got up to speed quickly in FP2 and has spent the session mostly focusing on preparing himself for qualifying and race, which will be run at this same later time of day. We are perhaps not as well placed in the timesheet as we would like, in terms of the gap to the cars ahead and behind, however I’m sure we can make some progress overnight and perhaps improve our position for tomorrow.”

Caterham Renault

Giedo van der Garde (in Vitaly Petrov’s car for FP1): “Obviously that was a pretty frustrating session, but these things sometimes happen. As soon as I went out on the installation lap I could hear that the engine sounded different to my previous FP1 runs and from what I understand the problem looks like it’s to do with the electronic boxes or the looms. It’s a shame as this is a track I know well and it would have helped to run more comparisons with the updates on Heikki’s car, but I still have the first two days of the young driver test in the car next week so that’s what I’m focusing on now.”

Heikki Kovalainen: “For me today was pretty good. In the first session we ran a number of the new parts we brought here and then did comparison runs in FP2, as well as trying the soft tyres on a performance run, and a longer stint at the end of the session. The key to unlocking the potential of the upgrades is finding the right setup and with the amount of laps we ran over both FP1 and FP2 today we’ve generated enough data to give us a good chance to find something we can work with tomorrow. There’s a long night ahead but everyone’s working harder than ever to keep making progress and hopefully we’ll see some of the results of that tomorrow.”

Vitaly Petrov: “I sat out FP1 and saw how hard the team worked to sort out the electrical issue that cut Giedo’s session short. It was all sorted out by the start of FP2 so we could get on with the program immediately. On my first run we had a few handling issues to sort out so we made some mechanical changes and saw an immediate improvement on the second run. By the time we put on the soft tyres the times were getting quicker with every lap and I think we found a balance that’s working for us around here. We’ve generated a lot of data from all the runs we’ve done today on both tyre compounds so even with the problem we had this morning we’ve got through nearly the whole program and are set up ok for the rest of the weekend.”

Ferrari

Another busy Friday workload for Scuderia Ferrari, with a little over 600 kilometres covered by the F2012s of Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa. As usual, the two drivers worked on evaluating various aerodynamic configurations and studying the behaviour of the Pirelli tyres, running different fuel loads. The Maranello cars ran troublefree throughout.

Fernando Alonso: “The day just ended was a Friday like any other, during which we got through everything on our programme. The morning session was dedicated to a comparison of various aerodynamic solutions, while in the afternoon, we concentrated on the tyres. Between the first and second sessions, the track changed a lot, which to be honest was predictable, because there aren’t many races here over the weekend: at the start, it seemed very dirty but then it improved a lot and tomorrow, it will definitely be even better.”

Felipe Massa: “We got through everything on our job list, which is always a good thing, both in the first and second free practice sessions. We tested the tyres in the usual way – first on a low fuel load and then with a lot more - to evaluate them over a long run. From what we could see, over a long run we are reasonably competitive, but less so on a single flying lap. Sure, it would be better if we were a bit quicker, but we will see what the situation is when it really matters, which means to say tomorrow afternoon in qualifying.”

Pat Fry: “We are pushing as hard as we can to bring updates to every race. Some of the ones we introduced here seem to be positive, but we must carefully evaluate their performance and then decide which to use in qualifying and the race. Felipe’s long run didn’t seem too bad, but clearly we have to improve our performance over a single lap if we want to start from the front row of the grid.”

Force India Mercedes

All three Sahara Force India drivers were in action today during free practice at Yas Marina ahead of this weekend’s Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.

Nico Hulkenberg: “I think it’s still difficult to know where our performance level is right now, but we probably need to raise our game and improve a bit overnight if we want to challenge for points. The balance is not perfect just yet so we need to work tonight to get the car closer to the sweet spot. Apart from that we got through the programme, collected all the tyre data and so it was a fairly normal Friday.”

Paul Di Resta: “I think we learned quite a lot this evening, but there’s a lot of work ahead of us to understand where we stand and where we can improve. This track is all about grip in the low and medium speed corners and that’s where we need to focus tonight. In terms of tyres we collected a lot of data today so we will be working hard to make sure we get them in the right operating window for qualifying and the race.”

Jules Bianchi: “It think this was probably my best free practice session so far. I’ve done lots of testing here before so I know the track really well and felt very comfortable. The programme was quite simple with three runs, lots of laps and we improved the car with each run. The track improved a lot during the session, but the tyres went off quite quickly so it was difficult to improve my times at the end of the session.”

Robert Fernley, Deputy Team Principal: “A pretty solid day of practice with all three drivers working together well and getting through the programme. Jules was in the car for FP1 and he did exactly what we needed and delivered consistent lap times. As usual we had some test items to evaluate, which we did with Nico, before focussing on tyres and longer runs in the afternoon. It was an important session for Paul, who has not felt totally comfortable with the car in the last few races. We’ve tried our best to address his concerns so hopefully those issues are behind us with the chassis change.”

Lotus Renault

Romain Grosjean went fifth fastest and Kimi Räikkönen set the sixth quickest time - with
just 0.032secs separating them - at the end of Friday’s two practice sessions at the Yas
Marina Circuit this afternoon. The team evaluated new chassis wings and an exhaust
update. Both cars ran reliably throughout the two 90 minute practice sessions.

Technical programme notes :

— We evaluated an exhaust update on Kimi’s car in FP1 and FP2.
— Romain ran new chassis wings in both sessions.
— Pirelli’s medium compound tyre was used in the first session, the medium and soft in
the afternoon.

What we learned today :

— We gained a good amount of data to make a conclusion on the exhaust update.
— We will run with the new chassis wings on both cars for the rest of the weekend.

Kimi Räikkönen: "We were good on Friday in India and we’ve been strong again here in Abu Dhabi today. We tried a few new parts on the car in both sessions and we have some things to go through before tomorrow. Our lap times seem to be pretty okay so far ; hopefully we can find a little bit more pace for tomorrow in practice and then again for the qualifying session."

Romain Grosjean: "Looking at today’s times I think it’s possible for us to be battling nearer to those ahead of us this weekend, as I think we can still improve our lap times. I did not drive the best lap of my life with the option tyres today ; with the first set of options you put on you have to go for it, so I think I can still improve a little bit. To get in front of the cars ahead of us will be difficult, but we will try, so why not ? We had some updates that worked well, so we will keep them."

Alan Permane, Trackside Operations Director: "We’re quite happy with where we are today. We spent the morning on medium tyres, setting up and balancing the cars. Both were reasonable, with the drivers relatively happy. We ran an exhaust update with Kimi in FP1 and went back to the standard setup for the start of the second session. We then did another back to back analysis, so whereas we would normally have done a much longer high fuel run we spent FP2 evaluating this to gain good data and give us a clear picture on where we need to be tomorrow."