Sebastian Vettel thinks McLaren will be the team to beat at the Abu Dhabi GP – Formula 1 news
Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel admits that McLaren will be the team to beat at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix this Sunday.
At the first free practice this Friday, McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton was successful at setting the quickest pace of 1 minute and 43.285 seconds. Hamilton’s teammate Jenson Button was second quickest with a time of 1 minute and 43.618 seconds. Vettel finished
the practice session at third place with a pace of three quarters of a second slower than Hamilton’s. However, Fernando Alonso, who is the main rival of the Red Bull driver for the championship this season, finished at fourth place being 0.3 seconds slower
than Vettel.
In the second practice session the same day, Vettel improved his pace to come out the quickest this time leaving behind both Hamilton and Button at second and third place respectively. Alonso was able to finish only at seventh place.
The Red Bull driver is not ignoring the pace shown by the McLaren drivers and thinks they might be bringing challenge at the Abu Dhabi GP.
“I think we can be happy with today,” Vettel said. “Overall we got a good lap on the soft tyres, but in general pace the McLaren's were quick and seem competitive, so they're the ones we need to look out for and beat. We need to improve the car overnight
to qualify as high as we can tomorrow. Today the battle was with Hamilton and he was very quick on the medium tyre. We need to do a little bit of catching up to make sure we are very close to them if not ahead of them tomorrow.”
He also added that the Yas Marina track had appeared to be tricky on Friday and was really slippery as many cars kept getting off the track frequently. The drivers have had a chance to get used to the track in the first two practice sessions and know what
limits they can push. He insists they need to make sure the car is being improved for the third practice session and the qualifying.
Vettel is on his way to become the youngest triple champion although he believes that anything can happen by the end of the season.
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