The teams’ work at the tests in Abu Dhabi in the first half of the day was interrupted twice by red flags – once due to an accident by George Russell, but also once before that, and for a somewhat strange reason.
35 minutes after the start of the session, between turns 13 and 14, water began to flow from the left side of the track onto the asphalt – as it turned out, as a result of an accident in the water supply networks of the W Abu Dhabi – Yas Island- hotel located there.
By then, Aston Martin’s reserve driver Felipe Drugovich had moved into first place with a lap of 1:26.265, which was just 0.005 seconds faster than Sergio Perez’s lap.
It took about half an hour to repair the leak and its aftermath, with track workers using industrial hairdryers to dry the asphalt, but work on the track resumed after 24 minutes.
George Russell was the first to leave the pits in the morning, but it just so happened that he was the first to leave the cockpit of the car. With around an hour to go in the first session and on his 59th lap, his W14 went off track at Turn 6 and crashed into the barriers, causing serious damage to the right front of the Mercedes.
“George’s day at the Abu Dhabi test came to an early end after an accident caused by a car malfunction,” the team said. “The car has already been delivered to us and we have started investigating the causes of the incident. But most importantly, George is absolutely doing well.”
This time the tests were interrupted for 28 minutes, leaving very little time until the legal day break.
After the results of the first session, Carlos Sainz, who had a lot of bad luck in the season finale, moved to the first line of the protocol. But today the Spaniard was the fastest, completing 69 laps in a Ferrari SF-23, and the best lap was 1:24.799. Sergio Perez showed the second fastest time, losing 0.925 seconds to Carlos and completing 20 laps less. The third result went to Oscar Piastri, and the best of the rest was Drugovich.
Robert Schwartzman rounded out the top five, completing 61 laps in Charles Leclerc’s car, with the Ferrari reserve’s best time being 1:26.267.
Pato O’Ward drove the most laps of all – 74 – in a McLaren car this morning, and the least of all – Ayumu Iwasa, for whom this is the first experience of driving a Formula 1 car: he completed 46 laps at the wheel of an AlphaTauri.
Testing continues in the afternoon with Logan Sargent replacing Alex Albon in the Williams car, Fernando Alonso continuing the work started by Lance Stroll, also on the circuit of Charles Leclerc in a Ferrari, Yuki Tsunoda in his AT04, in which he distinguished himself last Sunday. and Zach O’Sullivan replaced Franco Colapinto in the second Williams car.
The tests end at 6:00 PM local time.
Source: F1 News
I am Christopher Clyde, an experienced journalist and content writer with a passion for sports. I have been writing about Formula 1 news for the past five years and am currently employed as an author at athletistic.com, one of the top sports websites in the US.
