Mercedes preserved their position at the top of the times sheets in the second practice session – but this time it was Nico Rosberg who was fastest.
Lewis Hamilton was slightly quicker than his team mate at the beginning of the session on the soft tyres. But after switching to the faster super-soft rubber Rosberg became the only driver to lap the Yas Marina circuit in under one minute 42 seconds, pegging his team mate back.
A close battle behind the two silver cars was led not by a Ferrari, Williams or Red Bull as usual, but Sergio Perez’s Force India. However he hit trouble on his race simulation run at the end of the session, pulling into the pits with a fire developing in his left-rear brake.
Perez edged Daniel Ricciardo for third place by 37 thousandths of a second. Sebastian Vettel, who began the session by singing “happy birthday” in Italian to his race engineer Ricardo Adami on the team’s radio, was not far behind in fifth. Ricciardo and Vettel’s team mates were next – the group of five separate by little more than two-tenths of a second.
Fernando Alonso gave Mclaren some encouragement by putting his car in ninth place, within a second of Rosberg’s pace. However fellow Spaniard Carlos Sainz Jnr pulled over at turn seven after another failure on his Toro Rosso.
Second practice visual gaps
Nico Rosberg – 1’41.983
+0.138 Lewis Hamilton – 1’42.121
+0.627 Sergio Perez – 1’42.610
+0.664 Daniel Ricciardo – 1’42.647
+0.734 Sebastian Vettel – 1’42.717
+0.815 Daniil Kvyat – 1’42.798
+0.866 Kimi Raikkonen – 1’42.849
+0.945 Nico Hulkenberg – 1’42.928
+0.972 Fernando Alonso – 1’42.955
+1.448 Pastor Maldonado – 1’43.431
+1.458 Valtteri Bottas – 1’43.441
+1.523 Felipe Massa – 1’43.506
+1.679 Max Verstappen – 1’43.662
+1.871 Carlos Sainz Jnr – 1’43.854
+1.946 Romain Grosjean – 1’43.929
+2.133 Felipe Nasr – 1’44.116
+3.262 Marcus Ericsson – 1’45.245
+4.467 Will Stevens – 1’46.450
+5.039 Roberto Merhi – 1’47.022
Drivers more then ten seconds off the pace omitted.
2015 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix
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- 2015 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix team radio transcript
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Understeer (@abdelilah)
27th November 2015, 14:41
Don’t let this one slip from your hands Lewis.
Mememe
27th November 2015, 14:47
Mclaren Alonso in top 10. Not bad n good performance.
ColdFly F1 (@)
27th November 2015, 15:01
As soon as McLaren stopped focussing on improving they pull this one out of their hat.
Maybe that’s what they should’ve done all year!
Srdjan Mandic (@srga91)
27th November 2015, 15:12
Fernando definitely set his time on very low fuel, because there is no way he is over a second faster than Jenson on pure pace. Their long runs were pretty bad, miles of the pace compared to the front runners. Wouldn’t surprise me at all if neither of them would reach Q2 tomorrow. Even the Manors had better straight line speed than them.
@HoHum (@hohum)
27th November 2015, 21:34
maybe it’s all due to the 2016 parts.
Sumedh
27th November 2015, 15:44
any video of Vettel singing on team radio? There was a video of him singing La Italia after Singapore GP victory.
The guy is really loving this new year at the new team, isn’t he?
Michael Brown
27th November 2015, 15:52
Better watch it before FOM notices
http://youtu.be/VkEPfUG3hk4
evered7 (@evered7)
27th November 2015, 15:54
Link
OmarRoncal - Go Seb!!! (@)
27th November 2015, 16:44
Hahahhaa great Seb as always!!!