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The Mercedes once again make a void: in the second free practice session of the Abu Dhabi GP it was Valtteri Bottas who stood out in the W11. The Finn with 1’36 “276 obtained on soft tires was faster than the returning Lewis Hamilton, who was 203 thousandths behind his teammate. The hepta champion had his best performance canceled (1’36” 097 ) due to a wide curve 21 where the sensor that controls roadblocks drowns. Lewis changed the steering wheel computer five times with button and throttle changes completed for the next year.
In the afternoon, English seemed more comfortable than in the morning session. Brackley technicians mounted the 2021 Prototype tires for the scheduled 10 laps, as did all the teams in the first half hour of the second lap, but then the others went back to work according to race weekend, while the black arrows reassembled. 2021 tires running a long race to collect useful items for next year’s car development.
The world champion team, which in Portugal had had a controversial approach to new tires in front end construction and design, changed their attitude after realizing that Pirelli and the FIA would not change the already homologated specifications.
Max Verstappen, who had excelled in the morning, is back in third place with Red Bull. Only the Mercedes managed to break the wall of 1’37 “, while the Dutchman with 1’37” 046 stayed at 770 thousandths. but he couldn’t finish a clean lap on the soft, so time was taken with the averages.
The Milton Keynes team also had a good confirmation from Alexander Albon, who was able to stay just two tenths of a second behind Verstappen, after he stopped conducting aerodynamic experiments for 2021.
Beautiful performance by Lando Norris with McLaren: the Englishman with a highly visible unpublished helmet on the night of Yas Marina finished ahead of Esteban Ocon with Renault. The Frenchman was one thousandth of a second ahead of Sergio Pérez’s performance with Racing Point.
Behind the winner of the Sakhir GP is Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari: the Monegasque with 1’37 “508 is eighth behind a mustache of the two cars in front and also Albon seems within reach of the Network. Curious that Daniel Ricciardo still stood out. Ferrari driver’s time in the thousandth with Renault!
The top 10 is completed by Lance Stroll with the second Racing Point followed by Dannil Kvyat with AlphaTauri and McLaren by Carlos Sainz. The Russian 11 did better than his French partner 13.
Positive performance from Kimi Raikkonen, who is very fond of Abu Dhabi: the Finn was only 15th ahead of Sebastian Vettel in the SF1000. Iceman caused a red flag – his Alfa Romeo C39 caught fire at the rear due to a turbo failure. Kimi was able to park the car and intervene in person with commissioners to put out the flames, which were quickly extinguished.
In the Haas, driven by Michael Schumacher in the morning, Kevin Magnussen reappeared 16th, preceding Antonio Giovinazzi (Alfa Romeo) and George Russell. The English boy had to give up the last part of the shift due to a loss of electricity from the power unit which was later fixed by Grove technicians.
Pietro Fittipaldi, in difficulty in the morning with Haas, is not the last: Nicolas Latifi finished behind the Brazilian who paid half a second from the most experienced Dane.
