Sebastian Vettel has somewhat emotionally completed his last ever Free Practice One and Free Practice Two as a Formula 1 driver, with the German admitting that it did feel “funny” that it was the last time.
He settled into the day at the Yas Marina Circuit as easily as you’d expect, given that he is a four-time World Champion. The Abu Dhabi Grand Prix is the place where Vettel shocked the world in 2010 and claimed his maiden Drivers’ Championship, something he’ll never forget.
The German ended the first session of the day under the baking Abu Dhabi sun in sixth, before ending the day in twelfth as the night settled in.
Looking ahead to the rest of the weekend, he’s hoping that he can “improve” with some tweaks to be done to his AMR22, where he’ll be targeting one last heroic qualifying performance.
“It has been like many other Fridays, to be honest! Once you drive out of the garage, you get into the rhythm and try and get in the groove with the car which did not take long this afternoon. It was the same again this evening with how the track changes here when the sun sets. It does feel a bit funny that it is the last Friday, however. All in all, a productive day with plenty of laps. We will see what we can do overnight and how we can improve ahead of tomorrow.”
“It will be tight against our competitors again” – Lance Stroll
For Lance Stroll it was a considerably quieter day, considering that he was replaced in the first session by newly crowned Formula 2 World Champion Felipe Drugovich.
In the afternoon, though, Stroll managed to complete twenty-seven laps and ended the day occupying fourteenth spot, less than two-tenths behind his retiring team-mate.
Stroll is expecting the fight with the Alfa Romeo F1 Team ORLEN to be “tight” going into the business end of the weekend, with the Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant Formula One Team hoping to steal sixth in the Constructors’ from them.
“We completed some good laps in FP2 this evening after making way for Felipe earlier in the day. He did a really good job in FP1. We have some ideas that we want to think about overnight based on the data we have gathered today. It looks like it will be tight against our competitors again here, just as it has been all season. To beat them, we will need to maximise everything we can across the rest of the weekend.”
