George Russell showed impressive pace during the final FP1 session of the 2023 F1 season, leading the session with a time he set very early on the soft tyres, with others unable to catch the Mercedes driver even with track evolution. It was a session full of rookie drivers, with exactly half the field being FP1-only drivers – with Felipe Drugovich proving especially impressive with P2 in the Aston Martin.
Photo Credits: Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team
The final Friday of practice for the 2023 F1 season got underway in Abu Dhabi, with a raft of rookie drivers taking part, as teams moved to serve their mandatory rookie FP1 outings in the final chance possible.
Red Bull notably using both cars with rookie drivers for the first time ever, with both reigning world champion Max Verstappen and his team-mate Sergio Perez absent from the first session, making place for reigning Formula E champion Jake Dennis and F2 driver Isack Hadjar.
Ferrari brought its reserve and development driver Robert Shwartzman, whilst Mercedes put F2 title challenger Frederik Vesti in Lewis Hamilton’s Mercedes. Williams gave F2 driver Zak O’Sullivan a chance in Alex Albon’s car, with Haas and Alfa Romeo running drivers they had already run in 2023, with Oliver Bearman and Theo Pourchaire, respectively.
Dennis was one of the first drivers out on track, but had to come back straight away as he his helmet was “nowhere near tight enough” he reported over the radio.
George Russell led the session early on, with a time of a 1:26.963, but he wasn’t fully comfortable with his Mercedes, reporting over the radio that he was having to turn “too much” in low-speed corners.
McLaren’s Pato O’Ward nearly had a scare as he started his first flying lap in the MCL60, getting too eager on the throttle out of the final corner and dramatically catching the back-end of his car.
With a third of the session gone, the classified order of the top 10 was: Russell, Tsunoda, Sainz, Ricciardo, Sargeant, O’Ward, Gasly, Bottas, Vesti and O’Sullivan.
AlphaTauri was the only team not to run any rookie drivers during this session, and the experience from their regular drivers proved important in getting the team up the order early doors, with both Tsunoda and Ricciardo running in the top four after 25 minutes of the session remaining.
The team also ran a brand new floor on the AT04, as it still brought an upgrade for the final race of the season, in order to take the fight to Williams for P7 in the constructors’ championship.
Pourchaire reported his Alfa Romeo had “bottoming” in turns two and three, which caused the Frenchman to nearly lose control of his car as the session approached halfway of its duration.
In for Alpine, Jack Doohan had a massive scare heading to the final corner, as he found a slow-moving Logan Sargeant moving across the track, with the pair nearly colliding. Doohan reported he nearly had “the biggest accident” of his life.
At the halfway point of the session, the classified order of the top 10 was: Russell, Sargeant, Piastri, Stroll, Tsunoda, Ricciardo, Bottas, Magnussen, Sainz and Gasly.
Gasly soon improved his time, with a lap on the soft tyres jumping him up to second place, just over six tenths back from Russell’s benchmark of a 1:26.081 – which the Briton improved by nine milliseconds a few moments later. His team-mate Frederik Vesti was just seven tenths back in third place, with a lap on the soft tyres leaving him three-quarters of a second back.
Oliver Bearman enjoyed an impressive run during the first part of the session, running within just a tenth of a second from his established team-mate Kevin Magnussen.
A feature of this session was drivers losing the back of their cars exiting the final corner, with the latest being Lance Stroll nearly losing his AMR23 in dramatic fashion as the session reached its final quarter.
Oscar Piastri got a strong lap in for McLaren, just under six tenths back from Russell leaving him P2 – with O’Ward a further half-a-second back in P8.
With 15 minutes to go, the classified order of the top 10 was: Russell, Piastri, Gasly, Tsunoda, Sargeant, Vesti, Bottas, O’Ward, Stroll and Ricciardo.
Jake Dennis got his RB19 up to 10th place with a lap on the soft tyres, just over a second back from Russell. Hadjar soon jumped up to 11th, just behind Dennis by less than half-a-tenth of a second.
Valtteri Bottas got a strong lap in on his Alfa Romeo, jumping up to second just under four tenths back from Russell, but was soon usurped by rookie Felipe Drugovich, as the Brazilian set a very strong lap on the soft tyres to go just a third of a second back from P1.
Carlos Sainz jumped up to sixth place in his Ferrari with seven minutes of the session remaining, but it turned out to be a disappointing final sector in which he lost nearly half-a-second compared to Russell’s best final sector, set much earlier in the session. Ferrari and Mercedes are in a tight battle for second place in the constructors’ championship, with just four points separating both teams.
Sainz’s team-mate, Robert Shwartzman had an impressive run on the soft tyres, which left him just 0.027s behind the Spaniard, in P7.
At the very end of the session, Drugovich found some improvement in his impressive lap, getting to just under three tenths back from the top time.
The final classified order of the top 10 was: Russell, Drugovich, Ricciardo, Bottas, Stroll, Piastri, Sainz, Shwartzman, Gasly and Tsunoda.
Further back, Sargeant,Vesti, Doohan, Pourchaire, O’Ward, Dennis, Hadjar, O’Sullivan, Magnussen and Bearman rounded out the field.
Source: Formula 1
