Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsRace weekend

Hamilton quickest in first practice in Abu Dhabi

World champion Lewis Hamilton set the pace in the first practice session for the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.

At the start of the final race weekend of the season, Hamilton was 0.141s clear of team-mate Nico Rosberg courtesy of a lap of 1:43.754. Once again it was Ferrari which emerged as the closest challenger to Mercedes, with Kimi Raikkonen third but three quarters of a second slower than Hamilton's best time.

Daniil Kvyat was fourth quickest for Red Bull as he edged out Sebastian Vettel by 0.040s in the opening practice session, with Nico Hulkenberg just 0.009s further back in sixth place for Force India.

Times are unrepresentative during the first practice session at the Yas Marina Circuit as FP1 takes place in the heat of the early afternoon in Abu Dhabi. With the race taking place at sunset and finishing under floodlights, only FP2 - which gets underway at 1700 local time - provides the teams with comparable conditions to the race.

Like the rest of the season, Mercedes finds itself comfortably clear of the field but Ferrari will look to close the gap in the evening session. With both Red Bulls and both Force Indias in the top eight, Williams started the weekend over 1.5s off the pace with Felipe Massa tenth and Valtteri Bottas 11th.

McLaren set solid times in the opening session to finish 13th and 14th with Jenson Button and Fernando Alonso respectively, but it was a familiar story for the team as Button was limited to just 16 laps throughout the 90 minutes and Alonso complained of a loss of power.

There was also trouble at Lotus as reserve driver Jolyon Palmer - who will move up to a race seat next season - failed to reach double figures after a water leak kept him in the garage for the first hour of the session. Palmer did managed to complete nine laps but had a spin at Turn 18 as he tried to make up for lost time.

Roberto Merhi took part in his first practice session since the Russian Grand Prix but was 1.1s slower than team-mate Will Stevens as he got back up to speed in the Manor.

AS IT HAPPENED: Abu Dhabi Grand Prix - FP1

Unfinished business: the scores still to be settled in Abu Dhabi

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Pos	Driver	Team	Time	Laps
01	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	1:43.754	28
02	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	1:43.895	32
03	Kimi Raikkonen	Ferrari	1:44.500	27
04	Daniil Kvyat	Red Bull	1:44.702	23
05	Sebastian Vettel	Ferrari	1:44.742	23
06	Nico Hulkenberg	Force India	1:44.751	22
07	Daniel Ricciardo	Red Bull	1:44.893	26
08	Sergio Perez	Force India	1:44.934	27
09	Pastor Maldonado	Lotus	1:45.314	29
10	Felipe Massa	Williams	1:45.433	20
11	Valtteri Bottas	Williams	1:45.603	22
12	Max Verstappen	Toro Rosso	1:45.718	32
13	Jenson Button	McLaren	1:45.773	15
14	Fernando Alonso	McLaren	1:45.865	20
15	Felipe Nasr	Sauber	1:46.115	20
16	Carlos Sainz	Toro Rosso	1:46.220	21
17	Marcus Ericsson	Sauber	1:46.407	29
18	Jolyon Palmer	Lotus	1:47.068	9
19	Will Stevens	Manor	1:48.836	19
20	Roberto Merhi	Manor	1:49.888	20

Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.