Hamilton leads Mercedes 1-2 in Abu Dhabi FP1

Lewis Hamilton and George Russell upped the pace in the latter part of Friday's opening practice in Abu Dhabi, but the Mercedes pair's efforts were good enough to top the session's timesheets ensuring a productive start to the Brackley squad's final race weekend.

The Silver Arrows drivers were followed by Ferrari's Charles Leclerc and Red Bull's Sergio Perez while the latter's one-off teammate, Liam Lawson ended up as the fastest rookie out on track in FP1.

• 2021 Abu Dhabi GP Free Practice 1 - Results

The novelty of this weekend's opening session was that almost half of the regular field sat out the sixty-minute practice as a majority teams completed their mandatory young driver programmes.

Among the latter, Liam Lawson was in action with Red Bull replacing Max Verstappen, Ferrari test driver Robert Shwartzman subbed for Carlos Sainz, Pato O'Ward was behind the wheel of Lando Norris' McLaren, Jack Doohan was running in place of Fernando Alonso at Alpine and first-timer Felipe Drugovich was slotted on for Lance Stroll at Aston Martin.

Otherwise, Pietro Fittipaldi was on deck with Haas, replacing Mick Schumacher, while F1 veteran Robert Kubica took over Zhou Guanyu's Alfa Romeo.

Therefore, the only teams to field both regular race drivers in FP1 were Mercedes and AlphaTauri.

But lap times weren't expected to be like-for-like among the youngsters as many were entrusted with running experimental parts on their respective machines.

The session kicked off amid perfect weather and track conditions, but it was a troubled start for O'Ward who encountered an apparent transmission issue on his MCL36 on his out lap, with the McLaren pitwall ordering the Mexican to box immediately.

As the field began to stretch it legs, Perez went fastest using the softs, but the Mexican was overhauled in short order by Lawson who himself was surpassed by Leclerc.

But Perez quickly wrestled back the top spot, lowering the benchmark to 1m27.853 while edging Leclerc and Lawson.

Meanwhile, over at Mercedes, Russell and Hamilton were content to remain on Pirelli's hard tyre as they focused on set-up.

As the session neared its half-way mark, O'Ward was back on track with McLaren while a good effort on the softs moved Williams' Sargeant up to third.

But the American – who needed 100km in the session to secure an extra Superlicence point - then locked up on the approach to Turn 1, the Williams stepping out and sliding off, but stopping just short of the barrier.

Shortly after, Sargeant's teammate Alex Albon pulled out a 1m27.840s out of his FW44 that put him top, but as the track rubbered in Alfa's Valtteri Bottas picked up the baton, albeit briefly as Perez recouped the lead with a 1m26.967s.

With 15 minutes remaining on the clock, Leclerc outdid Perez by almost a tenth, but a soft shod Lewis Hamilton then dialed in the speed to pop up fastest, and Russell followed suit, the Briton ending up 0.220s adrift from his teammate.

The Mercedes pair had the last word, with Leclerc and Perez tucked in behind the two silver arrows.

Lawson concluded the session in P5, the Kiwi receiving bragging rights as the fastest young driver in. The 20-year-old rookie was followed by Sebastian Vettel, Shwartzman, Ricciardo, Bottas and Albon.

AlphaTauri's Pierre Gasly led the second half of the field from Alpine's Esteban Ocon. Alfa's Kubica in P14 led the second group of subs, from Sargeant, Fittipaldi in P17, O'Ward, Doohan and Aston's Drugovich.

Only time will tell if Hamilton staked his claim for winning his first race of the season, but the Brackley squad and its star driver are off to a good start.

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