Vettel tops Abi Dhabi opening session

F1 Grand Prix, GP Abu Dhabi, Yas Marina Circuit

As in most recent Grand Prix, the field seems once again closely matched at the front, with Sebastian Vettel narrowly topping the first free practice session at Abu Dhabi. Lewis Hamilton was second fastest at little more than a tenth, while Verstappen was similarly close in third.

The three-team top 3 was followed up by Raikkonen and Bottas, making Daniel Ricciardo the only man out of order, as he was down in 10th in the second Red Bull RB13.

Force India's Sergio Perez was 6th fastest, ahead of McLaren's Fernando Alonso and Stoffel Vandoorne. The Spanish McLaren driver notably didn't appear in the first half of the 90-minute session, but he was quickly on the pace and eventually completed more laps than his team mate.

Felipe Massa ended up 9th, a position he has become accustomed to recently.

Early on in the session, Raikkonen appeared on track with a plethora of testing devices on his car. The most obvious being a pitot array just behind one of the rear wheels of his Ferrari car.

During the session, several were a little bit too gready through the corners, with Ricciardo repeatedly going very wide and out of the track limits. Giovinazzi and Russell were caught out by tailwinds under braking, but only Romain Grosjean hit the barriers, and thereby caused damage to the rear end of his Haas.