Carlos Sainz was seventh fastest in the first free practice session for the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix at the Yas Marina circuit and, as required by regulations relating to young drivers, alongside him today replacing Charles Leclerc for this session, was Robert Shwartzman who set the eighth fastest time.
49 laps. Robert’s SF-23 was initially fitted with rakes to gather measurements, while Carlos immediately got on with fine tuning the set-up. They both went out on Soft tyres and a heavy fuel load, before tackling faster qualifying simulation laps on another set of Softs, both drivers setting their best times at this point. Carlos lapped in 1’26”676 while Robert stopped the clocks in 1’26”703 having performed particularly well throughout the session in which he was the second quickest rookie on track. Charles will be back in his SF-23 for the second session.