Abu Dhabi – Friday Practice Sessions: 6th

Source: autosport.com | lotusf1team.com | twitter

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A much cooler second session at the Yas Marina circuit saw Kimi and Romain rack up the laps to take P6 / P5 respectively, with soft tyre pace looking particularly encouraging as the team prepares for the challenge of qualifying tomorrow afternoon.

Summary

With the evening beginning to draw in, track temperature had dropped 13 degrees by the start of the session compared with the end of FP1
Both the white marked medium and yellow marked soft compound Pirelli tyres were used by each E20 over the course of proceedings
Solid pace on the medium and very encouraging times on the softs saw both drivers competing at the front of the pack
A variety of long and short runs were conducted by the pair as upgrade analysis and race simulations took priority
Both Kimi and Romain gave positive feedback on their respective setups; a positive start to the weekend

Kimi Räikkönen, E20-05

Position: P6
Fastest Lap: 1:42.532
Laps Completed: 28

Key Moments:
02mins: Out on fresh medium tyres for a quick first stint; goes P2
20mins: Second run on scrubbed mediums
43mins: Third outing of the day; used medium rubber once again
69mins: Inaugural showing on softs; climbs to P6 with first attempt
83mins: Final showing on scrubbed softs; dicing at the sharp end of the standings
90mins: Chequered flag; P6 for the Finn

Pos  Driver                Team                   Time               Laps
 1.  Sebastian Vettel      Red Bull-Renault       1m41.751            33
 2.  Lewis Hamilton        McLaren-Mercedes       1m41.919s  + 0.168  33
 3.  Jenson Button         McLaren-Mercedes       1m42.412s  + 0.661  35
 4.  Mark Webber           Red Bull-Renault       1m42.466s  + 0.715  21
 5.  Romain Grosjean       Lotus-Renault          1m42.500s  + 0.749  33
 6.  Kimi Raikkonen        Lotus-Renault          1m42.532s  + 0.781  27
 7.  Fernando Alonso       Ferrari                1m42.587s  + 0.836  30
 8.  Felipe Massa          Ferrari                1m42.823s  + 1.072  32
 9.  Pastor Maldonado      Williams-Renault       1m42.998s  + 1.247  36
10.  Sergio Perez          Sauber-Ferrari         1m43.106s  + 1.355  35
11.  Bruno Senna           Williams-Renault       1m43.191s  + 1.440  33
12.  Nico Rosberg          Mercedes               1m43.200s  + 1.449  35
13.  Nico Hulkenberg       Force India-Mercedes   1m43.255s  + 1.504  33
14.  Michael Schumacher    Mercedes               1m43.267s  + 1.516  31
15.  Paul di Resta         Force India-Mercedes   1m43.578s  + 1.827  33
16.  Kamui Kobayashi       Sauber-Ferrari         1m43.689s  + 1.938  31
17.  Daniel Ricciardo      Toro Rosso-Ferrari     1m44.260s  + 2.509  26
18.  Jean-Eric Vergne      Toro Rosso-Ferrari     1m45.073s  + 3.322  18
19.  Vitaly Petrov         Caterham-Renault       1m45.245s  + 3.494  35
20.  Heikki Kovalainen     Caterham-Renault       1m45.782s  + 4.031  32
21.  Timo Glock            Marussia-Cosworth      1m46.589s  + 4.838  34
22.  Charles Pic           Marussia-Cosworth      1m46.671s  + 4.920  30
23.  Pedro de la Rosa      HRT-Cosworth           1m46.707s  + 4.956  25
24.  Narain Karthikeyan    HRT-Cosworth           1m47.406s  + 5.655  34

FP1 Report:

Lashings of flo-vis paint and a session of power recovery formed the order of the morning for Romain and Kimi respectively, as the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix weekend kicked off in relatively low-key fashion under the searing sun of the Yas Marina.

Summary

Searing heat, clear skies and rising track temperatures forming ideal conditions to begin the weekend
The white marked medium compound Pirelli tyre was used exclusively by both drivers throughout proceedings
Kimi ran an updated version of the Coandă exhaust system
Romain’s E20 featured new chassis wing upgrades in addition to front end amendments
Both drivers completed relatively short stints as the team sought feedback and data on the new upgrades
Kimi suffered a puncture towards the end of the morning, forcing an early end to his session

Kimi Räikkönen, E20-05

Position: P10
Fastest Lap: 1:45.422
Laps Completed: 15

Key Moments:
01mins: First car out on track; medium tyres for an install lap
35mins: Short initial run on used mediums; analysis of new exhaust layout on the agenda
56mins: Scrubbed medium rubber again for another evaluation run
85mins: Session over; right rear puncture requiring assessment ends the morning early
90mins: Chequered flag; P10 for the Finn

FP1 Times:

Pos  Driver                Team                    Time               Laps
 1.  Lewis Hamilton        McLaren-Mercedes        1m43.285             20
 2.  Jenson Button         McLaren-Mercedes        1m43.618s  + 0.333   18
 3.  Sebastian Vettel      Red Bull-Renault        1m44.050s  + 0.765   21
 4.  Fernando Alonso       Ferrari                 1m44.366s  + 1.081   20
 5.  Mark Webber           Red Bull-Renault        1m44.542s  + 1.257   21
 6.  Michael Schumacher    Mercedes                1m44.694s  + 1.409   21
 7.  Nico Rosberg          Mercedes                1m45.194s  + 1.909   19
 8.  Pastor Maldonado      Williams-Renault        1m45.347s  + 2.062   24
 9.  Valtteri Bottas       Williams-Renault        1m45.347s  + 2.062   23
10.  Kimi Raikkonen        Lotus-Renault           1m45.422s  + 2.137   15
11.  Felipe Massa          Ferrari                 1m45.567s  + 2.282   23
12.  Nico Hulkenberg       Force India-Mercedes    1m45.587s  + 2.302   18
13.  Kamui Kobayashi       Sauber-Ferrari          1m45.722s  + 2.437   19
14.  Romain Grosjean       Lotus-Renault           1m45.743s  + 2.458   19
15.  Jules Bianchi         Force India-Mercedes    1m45.769s  + 2.484   21
16.  Sergio Perez          Sauber-Ferrari          1m45.811s  + 2.526   21
17.  Daniel Ricciardo      Toro Rosso-Ferrari      1m46.649s  + 3.364   22
18.  Jean-Eric Vergne      Toro Rosso-Ferrari      1m46.708s  + 3.423   24
19.  Heikki Kovalainen     Caterham-Renault        1m47.418s  + 4.133   22
20.  Timo Glock            Marussia-Cosworth       1m47.891s  + 4.606   19
21.  Pedro de la Rosa      HRT-Cosworth            1m48.354s  + 5.069   21
22.  Max Chilton           Marussia-Cosworth       1m48.887s  + 5.602   21
23.  Ma Qing Hua           HRT-Cosworth            1m50.487s  + 7.202   20
24.  Giedo van der Garde   Caterham-Renault        no time               3

Lotus team quotes:

Kim Raikkonen – 10th/6th: “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.”

“We tried the new exhausts and didn’t really change the car a lot apart from those parts, and it didn’t feel very nice. But the laptime seems pretty OK still. I am a bit surprised how good the time was when it wasn’t very nice to drive.

“Hopefully we can improve and it should mean that we can get a bit closer even than where we are today. I think for sure there should be four tenths, I would say, if you get the things right, but unfortunately it is not often you get those things right.

“It is usually a bit compromised here and there, but last race we had a very nice car until we changed the set-up and it was not exactly like we wanted. But if we have a similar feeling with the car it should be good.”

“The tyres were OK, but I think the car overall was not maybe as good as we wanted and it always makes it a bit more tricky then. But I think the tyres seem to be fine so far – they were working fine and we didn’t see any issues. We didn’t have time to do a long run, we just wanted to make sure that we could compare [tyres].” [source]

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.”