Ferrari lead 1-2-3 in busy playoff Abu Dhabi test

Ferrari ended the year with a 1-2-3 record on a busy day of testing in Abu Dhabi, the last time Formula 1 will run simultaneously in 2022.

Teams will be able to drive two cars at the Yas Marina Circuit throughout Tuesday, with one used to test the 2023 tire compound and the other designated for novice drivers who can use both this year’s and next year’s tyres.

This opens up the possibility for many drivers to compete with the new team for the first time, as Fernando Alonso, Pierre Gasly, Oscar Piastri, Nick de Vries and Nico Hulkenberg And others are driving their new cars for the first time.

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But at the end of the nine-hour day, a pair of familiar faces, Carlos Sainz became the fastest Ferrari with a time of 1m 25.245 seconds, ahead of his teammate Charles Leclerc by just over 0.1 seconds.

Sainz took over from Leclerc in the afternoon, while Robert Schwarzman took on novice driver duties, with the test driver’s final lap giving him third place, just 0.017s behind Leclerc’s best effort.

Gasly was fourth fastest on his first day in the Alps, finishing with a flying lap over Sainz in the final 10 minutes of the run when the floodlights came on after sunset A score of more than 0.4 seconds.

World champion Max Verstappen was fifth after replacing Sergio Perez at lunchtime and completing 76 laps, ahead of Williams’ Alex Albon and Logan Sargent . With Sargeant a rookie, Williams is one of three teams capable of running a full 2023 driver line-up, as are McLaren and AlphaTauri.

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De Vries, seventh overall, was the busiest driver of the day, amassing an impressive 152 laps, with one spin in the morning, but ended up ahead of Lance Stroll, Red Bull’s Liam Lawson – like Dever Reese also spun at Turn 5 – with Jack Doohan in the Alps.

Former Alpine driver Alonso’s race on Sunday ended early after he was forced to retire due to a suspected water leak, so it’s perhaps no surprise he’s eager to get on the track first and run as much as possible with new team Aston Martin in Tuesday’s exam.

Alonso was also first on the track after the day’s opening red flag and drove into the afternoon, completing 97 laps, before handing over the car to new teammate Lance Stroll, with some soreness in his seat, but it provided him with Positive first impressions of Aston cars.

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Another driver to leave the Alps this year – Piastri – finished 14th overall on his McLaren debut despite sparking the first of the day when he stopped at Turn 7. Red flag, but still comfortably over 100 laps. That was one of two interruptions, the other being for debris – though that red flag was so brief that Hulkenberg went into the pits and was able to roll straight over and re-enter the track when the session turned green again.

It will be important for Hulkenberg to make up for some of the time he lost in his Haas debut, not only because he hasn’t played full-time in three years, but because he lost two hours in the morning after he was stopped in the middle zone The running time is a technical issue. The event did not require a red flag but did see the German miss some track time before going on to log 110 laps and finish 19th fastest, just 0.1 seconds and two positions ahead of Pietro Fittipaldi.