Raikkonen happy with his days work while Alonso halted by electrical problem

(Scuderia Ferrari SpA via Twitter)

The Ferrari Formula One team had a mixed a day on Friday at the Yas Marina circuit ahead of Sunday's season finale in Abu Dhabi. In the opening session Fernando Alonso finished the session as best of the rest behind the two Mercedes AMG PETRONAS F1 Team's duo of Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg. Kimi Raikkonen finished the first session in 12th place 2.655s behind Hamilton.

In the second session, Fernando Alonso could only manage two laps before his F14-T came to halt out on track unexpectedly. Speaking following the session the Spaniard stated:

'It was a real shame losing the opportunity to take part in the second free practice session here at Yas Marina, as it’s the only chance to get an idea of how things will really go this weekend. On my second lap, the car just stopped unexpectedly and even though the marshals did their best to push the car back to the pits in time to get it back out on track, the work took the mechanics longer than expected. 

In the first session, we managed to complete our programme and the car behaved as expected, but the temperature, much hotter than it will be in qualifying and the race, means the data we acquired is not that relevant. For the same reason, tomorrow’s third session won’t be that useful and t hat means the first lap to match conditions in qualifying and the race, in the dark in the afternoon, will be the first lap in Q1. We definitely won’t be that well prepared but all the same, we will try our best as usual.'

Kimi Raikkonen goes into the final race of the season hoping to break into the top ten in the championship as he is just two points behind McLaren Mercedes Kevin Magnussen with just Sunday's race remaining in 2014. Speaking following Friday's running the Finn stated:

'It was a very busy day and, particularly in the first session, we struggled a bit to find the right balance on the car. The programme included various set-up tests and, probably partly because of the high temperatures, my car felt rather nervous. Between the two sessions, we decided to make a few changes and in FP2, with lower temperatures, things improved, also in terms of how we compared to our competitors. 

My best lap wasn’t perfect, I made a small mistake. Overall, the work we did today produced positive results and this evening’s analysis of the data will deliver a lot of useful information to help us improve for qualifying and the race.'

© Ben Johnston 2014