In Abu Dhabi today Red Bull failed to replicate the dominant Friday form they showed last week in Brazil, and instead were second and fourth fastest at the end of the practice sessions.
Sebastian Vettel was beaten by Lewis Hamilton in the second session but was faster than both championship leader Fernando Alonso and teammate Mark Webber. He also had the consolation of finishing the first session top of the timesheets.
Webber took fourth in both of the 90-minute practice sessions today, but finished the day less than two tenths behind the fastest lap of his teammate. Despite being slower than the other three title hopefuls, the Aussie was reasonably satisfied.
“That was a good day; we had an engine change in between the two sessions, which was planned,” explained Webber. “It was the usual suspects up at the front today and Fernando, Seb and I were pretty much on similar times. The car is close to what we had in Brazil, it's hard to develop a car which is pretty solid already.
“It feels a bit like we're in Bahrain here in terms of the engineers' office and in the car it feels like a normal weekend, but obviously there's a lot more at stake – that's the only thing that's changed, but you can’t try any harder.”
