2023 Etihad Airways Abu Dhabi Grand Prix Race Recap،
ABU DHABI – George Russell dominated the opening practice session of the Formula One season finale this weekend in Abu Dhabi as nine of the sport’s ten teams fielded rookie drivers.
To help young drivers gain experience in F1, teams must dedicate two testing sessions per year to drivers with less than two Grand Prix experience.
Every team except AlphaTauri saved at least one of those outings for Abu Dhabi, while Red Bull replaced its two regular drivers having made no substitutions so far this year.
As a result, Friday’s opening practice session in Abu Dhabi saw ten young drivers take to the track, including Aston Martin reserve and reigning Formula 2 champion Felipe Drugovich, who finished second in the standings general.
F1 regulars Daniel Ricciardo, Valtteri Bottas, Lance Stroll, Oscar Piastri and Carlos Sainz occupied positions three to seven ahead of Robert Schwartzman, eighth after replacing Charles Leclerc at Ferrari.
Frederik Vesti finished 12th for Mercedes, just 0.743 seconds off Russell’s best time, ahead of Alpine reserve Jack Doohan and Alfa Romeo’s Theo Pourchaire, who is set to be crowned this year’s F2 champion this weekend. end.
Mexican IndyCar driver Pato O’Ward, who was named McLaren’s reserve driver on Thursday, finished 15th, ahead of Formula E champion and Red Bull simulator driver Jake Dennis, who piloted the winning RB19 of Max Verstappen of the championship.
Isack Hadjar drove the second Red Bull and finished 17th ahead of this year’s Formula 3 runner-up Zak O’Sullivan in Alex Albon’s Williams.
The two Haas cars were 19th and 20th, with regular driver Kevin Magnussen 0.067 seconds ahead of Ferrari academy driver Oliver Bearman. Just 1.5 seconds split the entire field from Russell to Bearman.
Stroll, Logan Sargeant and Vesti are all under investigation for driving unnecessarily slow during the session. Sargeant’s incident was particularly dangerous as he blocked Doohan on the final corner, forcing the Alpine driver to take evasive action.
