Practice day reaction: Vettel bemoans final sector pace drop

The first two Free Practice races for the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix took place on Friday and it was a day of ups and downs for Sebastian Vettel as the Ferrari driver set the pace with a good outing in FP1 only to lose out to Lewis Hamilton in FP2.

Vettel is coming off a race victory at Interlagos at the Brazil Grand Prix and is aiming to secure a positive end to the campaign now that Hamilton has already sewn up the championship.

After winning FP1, Ferrari would have been wanting a Friday clean sweep by claiming FP2, but Vettel lost to Hamilton by almost two-tenths of a second with the vital moment of the race coming during a hot lap in the final sector which challenges the drivers with twists and turns. Going on form this year, it was predicted that his Ferrari would outperform Hamilton's Mercedes in this sector, but the opposite happened, much to Vettel's bemusement.

"I don’t know why [slower in final sector], I saw that as well,” the German said in the press conference following FP2.

“I think they are very quick. I was very happy with the lap to be honest – maybe the last sector there was a bit more.

“Overall it was okay and we started off on the right foot. If I can behave in the final sector I should be better off.

“It was a good day, the balance was good and the car was good straight away. I think it will be very close. I haven’t seen the long runs in terms of times, but it felt okay."

Vettel is, of course, aiming to finish the season on a high but also insisted during the press conference that, for the most part, Ferrari's attention has now diverted to improvements for the 2018 campaign.

“We try stuff all the time to improve the car – not specifically for next year – but everything we tried the last two weeks is for next year,” he said.

“The mindset is that we are already in next year.

“It’s important to finish on a high – the better the result and better the mood – we will try our best but in our heads I think we are already thinking about next year’s car.”