Alpine’s Esteban Ocon set the pace during post-season testing at Yas Marina as Formula 1 running for 2023 came to a close on Tuesday.
A total of 25 drivers took part in the day of running, with one car allocated to post-season tyre testing, and one car designated to young driver testing.
13 of Formula 1’s 20 race drivers were in action, with all bar Max Verstappen, Lewis Hamilton, Lando Norris, Pierre Gasly, Valtteri Bottas and the Haas pair staying on at Yas Marina.
The majority of the teams fielded the same young driver as per their FP1 line-up at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. The exceptions were AlphaTauri, which handed a maiden outing to Ayumi Iwasa, while Williams fielded fellow debutant Franco Colapinto during the morning session.
Ocon set a time of 1:24.393s to finish almost three-tenths clear of McLaren IndyCar front-runner Pato O’Ward, with Mercedes young driver Fred Vesti putting in a late lap to score third place.
Vesti was the sole Mercedes representative during the second half of running as George Russell’s day came to an early conclusion when he suffered a crash into Turn 6 midway through proceedings.
Mercedes provided little detail of the accident, other than it was caused by a mechanical failure, with Russell given the all-clear.
That was the major interruption in a day that began 25 minutes later than scheduled, due to the tardy arrival of the medical helicopter, while there was also another 25-minute pause in the morning running while a patch of water that leaked from the W Hotel was cleared.
Red Bull’s Sergio Perez was fourth, ahead of Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz and Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso.
Alpine reserve driver Jack Doohan, Ferrari tester Robert Shwartzman, Williams regular Logan Sargeant and Ferrari racer Charles Leclerc rounded out the top 10.
