KICK Sauber F1 Team opened its last weekend of on-track action with two busy sessions of practice in Abu Dhabi.

Valtteri Bottas and Zhou Guanyu, supported by the team on their last Grand Prix with the Hinwil squad, evaluated the latest upgrades brought to the C44 and fine-tuned the car setup ahead of tomorrow's Qualifying session: the final results, with Valtteri in P7 and Zhou in P15, despite some technical issues, leave us feeling confident of another solid performance under the Yas Marina lights.

Valtteri Bottas: "Today has been a positive start for us. The improved pace we've had in recent events seems to have carried on to Abu Dhabi, and I think we have a good base car now upon which to build, as the balance is in a decent window. We know it's going to be extremely close in qualifying, so we need to make sure we find a bit more performance for tomorrow. If we do that, we should be again in a strong position to fight for a good qualifying result, while also not compromising on the setup for the for the race."

Zhou Guanyu: "It hasn't been the smoothest day out there, but the pace of the car was promising. However, we suffered some issues with the brakes which hampered our progression. Our priority now, of course, must be to resolve this problem: I am confident we will be in a stronger position moving forward, and we will be able to maximise this final weekend of racing this year."

Check out our Friday gallery from the Yas Marina here.