Button sets early pace in Abu Dhabi

Practice for the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, penultimate round of the season, got underway in sunny conditions today. More running as usual was planned, courtesy of some experimental soft tyres provided by Pirelli.

Romain Grosjean – at the wheel of Senna’s car for this sole session - set the ball rolling fifteen minutes in. Lewis Hamilton joined him on the board later on and set a new benchmark. They were running different tyre compounds: hard ones for the Renault driver while Hamilton was on soft ones.

Both HRTs were next to complete a flying lap, while Rubens Barrichello had to pull off at the side of the track with an oil pressure problem.

With just under an hour remaining, the session really came to life. Most of the cars joined the track. The reigning World Champion Sebastian Vettel rapidly made his way up the order to slot in 2nd place behind Hamilton. Driving the second Red Bull, Webber also moved up in the top three.

Pastor Maldonado mixed it with the leaders for a while but slipped down the order as more drivers completed flying laps.

Halfway through the session, Jenson Button was topping the order. Mark Webber was second fastest with Vettel third and Hamilton fourth. Nico Rosberg was up in fifth place ahead of Maldonado and Schumacher.

Kobayashi and Glock were yet to set a time. The Japanese was stuck in the garage as his mechanics were carrying out repairs on his Sauber. Early in the session, he had reported gearbox problems.

Lewis Hamilton was the first of the frontrunners to leave the pits for a second run. He quickly improved his time and took over at the front from his teammate. Vettel rejoined soon and moved up to 2nd place, 0.3s behind the McLaren driver.

Felipe Massa had a big moment, losing his car under braking at Turn One. He slid sideways in the run-off area and was able to rejoin without hitting the wall. His teammate Fernando Alonso had a similar problem at Turn 5 a couple of minutes later.

Button eventually retook the lead while Webber got very close to Hamilton. The Australian found some late improvement in the dying moments of the session to split the McLaren pair. His teammate was fourth fastest ahead of Alonso and Massa. Sutil was seventh fastest ahead of Rosberg, di Resta and Alguersuari.