Analysis of longruns gives a distorted picture of opportunities of Verstappen

The second free practice of a race weekend is usually dominated by the longruns. Today was no different. Verstappen impressed by being the fastest man on the softs, but also knows that Mercedes has not yet shown the back of her tongue.

It was a difficult session for the drivers. The first twenty minutes were spent testing Pirelli's new tires for 2021. Later the session was stopped by the burning Alfa Romeo of Kimi Raikkonen. As a result, the team may have collected less data than they would have liked.

Softs

Max Verstappen was clearly the fastest man on the soft tire in Abu Dhabi, according to the analysis of Auto, Motor und Sport. The Red Bull driver drove four laps on this tire, averaging 1:41.936. Raikkonen was the fastest on the soft tire after Verstappen, although Kimi was more than eight tenths of a second slower than the Dutchman.

Alexander Albon also did reasonably well on the soft compound, but he was almost a second slower than his teammate. What is more striking is that the two Mercedes drivers are not even in the top ten of the longrun analysis of the soft tire.

Mediums

Also on the mediums Verstappen did very well: on this tire he was again the fastest. He drove an average of 1:41.913 over five laps. So it looks like the soft tire isn't very useful for the race. The drivers who can afford it will certainly try to achieve Q2 on the medium.

Albon was a lot closer to his team mate on this tire, on average he was only two-tenths behind. The first driver of Mercedes is only in sixth place. Valtteri Bottas was more than two seconds slower than Verstappen on average.

Hards

On the hard tire Carlos Sainz was the fastest, with Sergio Perez Pierre Gasly behind him.

Conclusion

Despite the fact that Verstappen op de mediums was more than two seconds faster than Bottas, we shouldn't cheer too soon. There were several problems during the session and Mercedes also decided to test the new tires for 2021 much longer than the other teams. In the end, the Bottas and Hamilton were back at the top of the VT2 timesheet.