McLaren's Lando Norris has claimed the early advantage in free practice for the title decider, going quickest in both sessions on the soft tyre. The sessions were held at different times of day, with FP2 being more representative of qualifying and the race.

Most drivers started FP2 at 17:00 local time on the medium tyre, in track temperatures of 28 degrees, but some of the early quickest times came on the soft courtesy of Isack Hadjar (Racing Bulls) and Oliver Bearman (Haas).

Verstappen was the first of the frontrunners to switch to the soft as the sun set with half an hour to go, and quickly moved onto longer runs on the medium for race simulation. With all the cars then selecting the soft towards the end of the session, Norris claimed the upper hand by 0.3s.

One of the standout performances came from Bearman, who finished the session in P4, while Piastri - another of the three championship contenders - ended up P11.

The opening FP1 session at 13:30 was held in warmer conditions, with Norris again going fastest from Verstappen by a much smaller margin.

Piastri missed FP1, as Pato O'Ward took over his McLaren: one of nine rookie drivers participating in the session (with a rookie officially defined as a driver who has started no more than two grands prix). This year, every driver is obliged to give his car to a rookie in two practice sessions. All three compounds were used during the FP1 session.

Simone Berra: "The times on the first day of Abu Dhabi are in line with simulations: about half a second faster compared to last year. In both sessions we found some instances of graining, mainly on the front-right, which has the effect of slightly accelerating degradation. In this context, the most consistent race tyres seem to be the medium and hard, whereas the soft appears to be more suited to a flying lap.

One factor to bear in mind though is track evolution. The support races are laying down rubber onto a surface that was initially quite dirty, improving grip. This means that graining could well be reduced in the next couple of days, putting the soft C5 back into play.

From what we just saw today, a one-stop strategy seems to be most likely. Nonetheless, as the weekend goes on, a two-stopper could also become a possibility. It's not by chance that both McLarens and the Aston Martin of Alonso did not run the hard at all in FP2, saving a new set.

An extra set of hard C3 tyres during the race gives more options in terms of strategy, especially if there's a safety car, and delivers performance very similar to the medium C4. The performance gap between the C3 and C4 is currently around two tenths of a second, while there's a bigger gap between medium and soft of about seven to eight tenths of a second."

Check out our Friday gallery from Yas Marina here.