With a time of 1min 25.009 secs Max Verstappen was on top in FP1. The Mercedes duo of Valtteri Bottas and Lewis Hamilton were behind in P2 and P3 respectively.
The other Red Bull of Sergio Perez was P4. Furthermore, Yuki Tsunoda who drives in AlphaTauri set up a good lap time which saw him place fifth. His teammate, Pierre Gasly was on P7.
George Russell was not driving his Williams in FP1, rather it was the test driver – Jack Aitken. He was P17 ahead of Nicholas Latifi in P18.
FP1 also had the recurring helmet cam, this time it was with Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc. The other Ferrari of Carlos Sainz had some issues which was making it difficult for the Spaniard to operate smoothly. They both were P8 and P9 respectively.
Their competitor in McLaren were out of top ten. Lando Norris took P12 whereas Daniel Ricciardo was even more trailing behind at P16.
There was a single yellow flag moment when Kimi spun at Turn 9. On the other hand, Esteban Ocon also had a close call at Turn 14. He further faced a problem when his car suddenly went into neutral mode. Though it was solved on the track itself.
The track limits this weekend are Turns – 7, 15 and 16. A lot of drivers went out of track in Turn 1 due to lock ups. Also going outside of Turn 16 made drivers lose their lap times.
The tyres showed bits of paint stuck to them from the revised Yas Marina Circuit.
Going into the last F1 weekend of the 2021 season, there were different helmets and liveries to be seen.
Kimi Raikkonen’s car had a “Dear Kimi, We will leave you alone now” message referring to Abu Dhabi GP of 2012. That year, the world champion spoke the infamous one-liner, “Leave me alone, I know what I’m doing.”
Alfa Romeo also have a message for Antonio Giovinazzi who is set to leave F1. “Grazie di tutto, Antonio” which translates from Italian as ‘Thanks for everything’. Both the Alfa drivers are sporting different helmets.
Bottas has “Danke Mercedes”, thanking the German team with whom he has raced for 5 years now. Tsunoda’s helmet is also having a message for the departing Honda.
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