Abu Dhabi – EL1: Leclerc puts Ferrari at the forefront, the youngsters show themselves

It's here, the last race weekend of the 2024 season is underway! In this first free practice session of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, it's Charles Leclerc who proved to be the fastest. However, the Monegasque had to wait in his garage during the first minutes of the session while the mechanics were still working on his car.

It is therefore with some delay that the future teammate of Lewis Hamilton began his work plan, finally accelerated after losing time. Regardless of this delay, Charles Leclerc quickly got into the rhythm and when he put on the soft rubber, his times were immediately competitive like his lap in 1'24"321 which allowed him to place himself at the top of the classification and with more than 2 tenths ahead of his closest pursuer, Lando Norris. This is not really representative at the moment because the gaps have been quite significant, with Lewis Hamilton third, almost half a second behind. This should therefore narrow down during FP2 (14:00 p.m. French time).

Especially since many regular starters have failed to respond to the call in the image of Max Verstappen or, Carlos Sainz who left their place to rookies for these EL1. Thus, Isack Hadjar replaced the Dutchman at Red Bull and Arthur Leclerc the Spaniard at FerrariAs an aside, the Leclerc brothers became the first in history to compete in a session within the same team.

In terms of performance, the best young driver was Felipe Drugovich on theAston Martin de Lance stroll. The Brazilian, 2022 champion of F2, managed to climb into the Top 10 thanks to a 9th time. For his part, Isack Hadjar had a session truncated by bad sensations in the cockpit. Spinning at turn 6, the Tricolore complained about the steering wheel but also about the feeling in his legs. This forced him to return to his garage and even leave his car for the mechanics to work on his seat. Back on track a few minutes later, he could do no better than 15th, just behind Ryo Hirakawa, substitute forOscar piastri in McLaren.

Also present for this first session of the weekend, Ayumu Iwasa (Racing Bulls in place of Yuki tsunoda), Arthur Leclerc and Luke Browning (at Williams instead of Alex Albon) finished 17th, 18th and 20th respectively. Jack Doohan, competing in his first race weekend, remained stuck at the back of the field with the 19th time.

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