Valtteri Bottas enjoyed a two-tenth advantage over teammate Lewis Hamilton in an eventful Practice 2 at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
The session began with drivers once again testing the 2021-spec Pirelli tyres which were heavily criticised after their last outing two weeks ago in Bahrain.
Once completed, attention switched to the medium tyre and it was on that compound which Bottas posted the 1m36.276s that would end as the fastest time of FP2.
Hamilton would go fractionally faster on the soft tyre but would have his time deleted after exceeding track limits at the final corner, dropping him back to second.
We are green again with around five minutes of FP2 to go ?
But Lewis Hamilton grinds to a halt in the pit lane ?#AbuDhabiGP ?? #F1 pic.twitter.com/UUM32T9yDQ
— Formula 1 (@F1) December 11, 2020
Technical issues also hampered Hamilton at different points, as he required two steering wheel changes, potentially linked to a gearshift problem.
Max Verstappen was third albeit half a second behind Hamilton in the Red Bull after traffic meant he too posted his best time on mediums.
Despite the factors preventing a representative final order, it was clear the softest tyre in the range was struggling to offer much of a boost in performance over the mediums due to overheating in the technical final sector.
Having had a number of laps deleted for track limits, Alex Albon finally made one count in fourth, putting himself two-tenths clear of a very tight midfield pack.
Lando Norris would lead that group in fifth, with McLaren teammate Carlos Sainz only 0.178s slower but down in 12th.
Just 0.003s covered Esteban Ocon, Sergio Perez, Charles Leclerc and Daniel Ricciardo in P6-P9, while Lance Stroll rounded out the top 10 for Racing Point.
After the short runs, the race simulations began but would be interrupted by Kimi Raikkonen’s fiery engine failure in the Alfa Romeo, requiring a red flag.
Almost simultaneously, George Russell also appeared to have some kind of ERS issue as he returned to the pits with a smoky Williams.
Full results from Practice 2 can be seen below:
