Yas Marina, 11 November

Fifth and sixth in Free Practice 1 and third and fourth in Free Practice 2 was the outcome of the first day of action at the Yas Marina circuit for Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa. At the wheel of their 150º Italias, they completed a total of 96 laps, 45 for the Spaniard, six more for the Brazilian. As has been the case for several races now, although the Scuderia is still trying its best to bring home some decent results in what remains of the season – just two races now – much of the Friday work is aimed squarely at 2012, so plenty of experimental parts and methodologies are being applied. The front wing is a big part of this, but despite its somewhat interesting behaviour on track, with a fair amount of movement, Felipe maintains that from the cockpit, all seems normal. With a big work load, the main priority is always to do as many laps as possible and that task was simplified this weekend, because Pirelli has supplied two extra sets of experimental tyres for each driver for Friday morning, as part of the Italian supplier’s 2012 development programme, which meant saving rubber was less of a concern than usual. In the morning session, Felipe survived a big slide, but apart from that ran trouble free, while Fernando lost some time at the end of the second session, as he went off the track at the first corner, hitting the barriers, after which his first concern was for his mechanics who now face the task of rebuilding the car for tomorrow’s free practice, which starts at 2pm, while qualifying follows on three hours later.

Ahead of the Prancing Horse duo, Lewis Hamilton was fastest at the end of the day with McLaren team-mate Jenson Button in second place. Behind Felipe came the Red Bull duo, with Mark Webber in fifth place ahead of the winner of the only two Abu Dhabi Grands Prix held to date, Sebastian Vettel.