Red Bull, having won its fourth consecutive driver’s and constructor’s championships, are not resting on their laurels. The team and its star driver Sebastian Vettel can tie or set a slew of records in the remaining there Grands Prix of 2013, and apparently they very much want to.
Vettel’s time of 1:41.335 was quickest in the second 90-minute practice session for Sunday’s F1 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, and in fact was quicker in Q2 than any car was in any of the three practice sessions at Abu Dhabi in 2012—with another session coming, and even more speed to find.
Red Bull’s second driver, Mark Webber was second quickest in the session, a result becoming all too familiar to the rest of the field. The Australian driver, who will be leaving Red Bull to drive sports cars for Porsche in 2014, was only .155 seconds behind his younger teammate.
Lewis Hamilton came third in his Mercedes, .355 off the pace, with his teammate Nico Rosberg fifth with a lap at 1:41.758. Hamilton is still in the hunt for second in the driver’s championship, and needs a good result in Abu Dhabi.
Lotus driver Kimi Räikkönen ran fourth quickest at 1:41.726, a welcome result for Lotus managements after some controversy after last weekend’s Indian Grand Prix, where a listless Räikönnen held up teammate Romain Grosjean and was roughly ordered aside.
Räikönnen is fighting for second place in the driver’s points, but he also knows he is leaving Lotus after 2013 to head to Ferrari. The former world champion was not able to contend for another driver’s title; the Lotus (and no other car on the grid) wasn’t quick enough to keep up with Vettel in the Red Bull RB9. (Of course, no other car could match the RB9, but that is no consolation for a driver intent on winning.)
It seemed Räikönnen’s dissatisfaction with Lotus might be sapping his motivation in the final few races, which meant a lot to Lotus, as the team is trying to secure funding for 2014 and needs the best results possible to convince investors. Hopefully the P2 results portend a quick weekend for the driver and his current team.
Grosjean finished twelfth, a standing which does not match his talent. The second Lotus driver lost time in the pits getting a shattered right front brake disc replaced, and only ran half the laps his teammate turned.
There is one other driver in the hunt for second place in the points: the driver who currently sits second, Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso.
Alosno has 207 points to Kimi Räikkönen’s 183 and Lewis Hamilton’s 169, which would seem to give the Ferrari driver the edge. However the Ferrari has been performing so badly of late, eighth was the best Alonso could manage in P2 and eighth is where he finished at India. The two-time world champion has been carrying the car through the last half of the season, but even his sublime skill cannot make up for the chassis’ lackings.
The high curbs of Abu Dhabi’s 3.35-mile, 21-turn Yas Marina circuit claimed a few casualties. Force India’s Paul Di Resta flattened a left-front tire and Marrusia’s Max Chilton had a chunk of ducting from the left front upright fly off. Super-slow-motion video of the cars bouncing high off the curbs through the left-right-left 11–12–13 complex. A misstep here in the race could be disastrous.
Practice session three runs from 6–7 a.m. EDT on Saturday, with qualifying starting at 9 a.m. Qualifying will be broadcast live on CNBC.
The Formula One Etihad Airways Abu Dhabi Grand Prix—the season’s only twilight-night race—takes the green flag at 8 a.m. on Sunday. The race will be broadcast in the United States on the NBC Sports Network, with pre-race coverage starting at 7:30 a.m.
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