2025 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix – Friday

Season finale gets underway in Abu Dhabi

• The 24^th and final round of the season got underway on Friday in Abu Dhabi.
• The team ran all three tyre compounds across the two hours of practice, gathering data on both single lap work and the long run.
• Both George and Kimi started FP1 on the Hard compound tyre in the warmer and slightly less representative conditions of that first hour.
• They ended the session with Kimi in P4 and George P6 before returning to the track for FP2 later in the day.
• In that more representative session, which sees the sun set halfway through, the team ran the Medium and Soft compounds.
• Georged ended the hour P3 on the timing screens with Kimi, in a tight session, P10.
• The team will now work through the data overnight, along with the usual overnight simulator programme at Brackley, before returning for FP3 on Saturday.

George Russell

We didn’t start off the day in the best place in FP1, but we were able to improve the car for FP2. In the hot conditions of the day, the car doesn’t always feel at its nicest, but it improves once the sun goes down and the track cools a little. That certainly helped along with the changes we made between the sessions.

It looks like it will be tight between the usual suspects at the front in qualifying tomorrow, but there could be some surprises in the mix including the Haas of Ollie Bearman and both Saubers who were quick today. We will have to execute well if we are to secure a good grid position. Equally, we’ve got work to do on our race pace; we will review tonight how we can improve that, and we will see where that leaves us on Sunday.

Kimi Antonelli

I don’t think we quite showed our full potential today. We made improvements heading into FP2, but I made a small mistake on my best Soft tyre effort near the end of the lap and that left me P10. We’re definitely there in the mix near the front for qualifying, although the McLaren certainly looks like the car to beat after today. The gaps are very tight across the field; we will need to perform at our best if we are to secure a good grid position.

Our long run in FP2 was much better than FP1 but we will look to improve the car further overnight so we can look ahead to race day with plenty of confidence. I am feeling good in the car though, looking forward to the rest of the weekend and to helping the team secure P2 in the Constructors’.

Andrew Shovlin, Trackside Engineering Director

George had already sat out both his FP1 sessions and Kimi is not required to do this given he is a rookie. That put us in the useful position of being one of only two teams with both race drivers in the car for the first hour of practice. This went reasonably smoothly with both getting to grips with the car.  The single lap looked OK but there was more to find on the balance; overall though, the pace was about where we’d expect.

Frustratingly, the long run was not good. The car was bouncing in the high-speed which was unsettling it. We therefore made some changes to improve both balance and bouncing going into the evening session. On the single lap, the car was still in a reasonable place but neither George nor Kimi put together a perfect effort. Whilst we took a step forward, the long run was still not where we wanted it to be. We were suffering from a bit too much graining and that’s defining our pace. That should improve with more rubber being laid down but we’ll also be looking at how we can change the car to improve this. Compared to recent Fridays, this has been more challenging so we’ll be working hard overnight to try and find some solutions.