The season’s final Grand Prix on Sunday will decide the drivers’ championship. Norris, Verstappen, and Piastri are still in the running
(g.t.) The sun sets on the first day on track in Abu Dhabi with a second free practice session that saw Lando Norris’s McLaren emerge as the best car on the track in terms of both qualifying simulation and race pace, followed by Max Verstappen’s Red Bull, more than three-tenths of a second behind the leader. The other McLaren, driven by Oscar Piastri, struggled much more, failing to go beyond 11th place. After a first session dominated by the rookies—a requirement to fulfill the FIA program mandating that teams bring their rookies onto the track for a total of four free practice sessions throughout the year—all the official drivers in the top series got back behind the wheel of their respective cars for Friday’s second official session, the “first” for the Australian McLaren driver, who had not participated in FP1 for this very reason. For him, it was a Friday that lagged behind his teammate’s, and he was far less comfortable in the car: Oscar will thus be called upon to make a significant step up tomorrow, where qualifying will present the opportunity to climb back up the standings from his current third-place position.
IMPRESSIVE LONG RUN McLaren still ends the day on a high note thanks to Norris’s excellent performance: the Briton completed an impressive long run, while Red Bull will have to work hard—as has often been the case this year—between Friday and Saturday to fine-tune a car that is not yet fully developed and follow Max’s instructions: “The car is bouncing a lot,” the Dutchman reported over the radio, complaining about a bouncing issue that could prove to be one of the decisive factors this weekend and that bothered many drivers during the session.
FERRARI STRUGGLING A difficult session for the Ferrari team, with the SF-25 appearing very twitchy already in the early stages of free practice. Charles Leclerc finished eighth, nearly six-tenths of a second off the pace, a far cry from the encouraging third-place finish (by just 16 thousandths) in FP1. Seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton struggled even more, finishing fourteenth at the end of the session and more than eight-tenths of a second off the pace: the Briton would like to end his first season in red—still without a single podium—on a positive note, but the early results of the weekend don’t seem to be heading in that direction. Third in FP2 was an excellent George Russell, while his teammate Kimi Antonelli finished tenth. Fourth was a strong Oliver Bearman in the Haas, who delivered the best team radio comment of the session: “The car is incredible,” he said, “but how can it be this fast!” Sauber put in a solid performance, with Nico Hulkenberg fifth and Gabriel Bortoleto sixth, while Isack Hadjar clocked an excellent sixth-fastest time for Racing Bulls. However, as always, the true pecking order will only emerge tomorrow in FP3, the final and most indicative free practice session of the weekend, when we’ll begin to see who can truly hope to finish their World Championship in the best possible way, as they prepare for the chaotic qualifying session at Yas Marina, set to start at 3:00 PM Italian time.
