The second practice session of the F1 2022 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix (Round 22) took place on Friday 18 November at the Yas Marina Circuit and Max Verstappen (Red Bull Racing) set the fastest time.
In the F1 Abu Dhabi GP, which will be a twilight race, FP2, which will take place at the same time as qualifying and the final, will be the only session capable of defining the setup.
The 60 minute FP2 session kicked off at 5pm local time as the sun began to set over the Yas Marina Circuit. The circuit, finally illuminated by the floodlights, had an air temperature of 29 degrees, 5 degrees less than in FP1, and a track temperature of 34 degrees, 10 degrees less. Furthermore, the track conditions evolved significantly during the session.
After nearly all of the riders entered the course on medium or hard, they did a short run on soft followed by a long run program consisting mostly of medium and hard.
The FP1 session was used by most of the teams to digest their rookie FP1s, so the eight riders who started racing from FP2 had a busy schedule.
There were no serious crashes during the session, but some drivers had some wild crashes. Sebastian Vettel suffered a severe block in turn 7 and brought out the yellow flags, while Daniel Ricciardo suffered a minor oil leak in his McLaren towards the end.
Max Verstappen (Red Bull Racing) set the fastest time in the second free practice session. He set a time of 1 minute 25 seconds 146.
George Russell (Mercedes) finished second with a difference of 0.341 seconds. Running on the softs was fastest in Sector 1, but I had a big crash and fell behind for the rest of the lap.
The third fastest time was Charles Leclerc (Scuderia Ferrari). He stalled in turn 3 and went off the track for the third time of the day, but did not cause any damage to the car.
4th place Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes) was hit by oversteer and was 0.615 seconds behind in 5th place. Sergio Perez (Red Bull) and Carlos Sainz Jr. (Ferrari) follow, and three strong teams occupy the top six.
Esteban Ocon finished 7th in the best of the others, followed by Fernando Alonso and the Alpine F1 cars in 8th, McLaren rival Daniel Ricciardo in 8th, with Valtteri Bottas (Alfa Romeo) in between, teammate Lando Norris he followed in 10th.
Yuki Tsunoda (Scuderia AlphaTauri) is 15th. Team mate Pierre Gasly ended the session in 19th position.
The third free practice session of the Abu Dhabi F1 GP will get underway at 19:30 (14:30 local time) on Saturday 19 November.
2022 F1 Abu Dhabi GP 2nd Free Practice Results / Time
Category: F1 / F1 race results / Formula 1 GP in Abu Dhabi
