Bottas leads Hamilton as Raikkonen fire disrupts practice

Valtteri Bottas ended Friday practice for the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix fastest, ahead of his Mercedes team-mate Lewis Hamilton who returns to race this weekend after recovering from COVID-19.

Bottas set a time of 1m36.276s to continue his strong run of practice performances, with Hamilton just behind him and practice one pacesetter Max Verstappen completing the top three for Red Bull.

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But all three failed to put together a clean lap on soft tyres, with their medium runs standing as their fastest and leaving the outright pace picture unclear.

Running in the evening practice session was blighted with track limits warnings and lap deletions, and a test of Pirelli’s 2021 tyres also took place in the opening stage of running – with all drivers having to do eight laps on these first.

With a little under 15 minutes to go in the session, the rear of Kimi Raikkonen’s Alfa Romeo caught fire and he pulled to the side of the track, causing a red flag period.

Raikkonen – who had at that point set a time fast enough for 14th – assisted marshals in extinguishing the flames and returned to the pits.

Flames from the back of Kimi Raikkonen's car brought a temporary halt to FP2 #AbuDhabiGP 🇦🇪 #F1 pic.twitter.com/cY1qi7Cr6d

— Formula 1 (@F1) December 11, 2020

The session resumed with seven minutes remaining, but Hamilton’s Mercedes stopped in the pitlane, with him reporting that he “couldn’t get in gear” over the radio.

Mechanics attended to him and managed to get the car restarted for a final run.

Verstappen’s under-fire Red Bull team-mate Alex Albon was fourth, ahead of McLaren’s Lando Norris and Sakhir Grand Prix podium finisher Esteban Ocon.

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Sergio Perez, who won last weekend for Racing Point but will start this week’s race from the rear of the grid as a result of an engine penalty, was seventh.

Charles Leclerc was the highest placed Ferrari in eighth, with team-mate Sebastian Vettel languishing in 15th.

Renault’s Daniel Ricciardo was ninth. Lance Stroll completed the top 10 for Racing Point.

Battery issues confined George Russell to the garage in the latter half of the session on his return to Williams this weekend, leaving him in 18th place overall.

Practice 2 Results