McLaren put Ferrari in the shade in Abu Dhabi as Williams take more pain

Lando Norris spearheaded a McLaren one-two in Friday practice for the season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix as the team made the ideal start to its bid to end 28 years of F1 constructors' championship pain.

The suggestion coming into the weekend was that Ferrari would be the team to beat. Its aspirations of winning the constructors' title for the first time since 2008 were dealt a hammer blow, though, during FP1 when it was forced to change the battery pack in Charles Leclerc's car.

It means the Monégasque goes into qualifying on Saturday knowing he will be hit with a 10-place grid penalty for a race in which Ferrari ideally needs to score a one-two to apply pressure on McLaren in the championship.

Leclerc and team-mate Carlos Sainz had to settle for the sixth and fourth quickest times at the end of the more representative FP2 session, with the sun setting over the Yas Marina Circuit.

With McLaren 21 points clear of Ferrari in the constructors' standings, how it would love a repeat of the FP2 timesheet, with Norris fastest from Piastri by almost a quarter of a second, leaving Sainz and Leclerc in the shade.

Williams woe

On the opening medium-tyre stints, it was a McLaren versus Ferrari battle. Norris again held sway with a time of 1:24.332s, two-tenths of a second clear of Leclerc and Sainz, with Piastri fourth quickest, 0.466s adrift. 

On the opening soft-tyre lap from Williams' Franco Colapinto, the Argentine driver was poised to go top after setting leading times in the first two sectors, only to make a mistake in the final sector and ruin his lap, an incident that had latter consequences.

Once the soft-tyre runs began in earnest, Piastri was the first to show his hand with a 1:23.751s, only to quickly be usurped by Norris by 0.234s.

In contrast, Verstappen was a second adrift, although he was compromised by traffic in the final sector. That was notwithstanding the fact he was bemoaning understeer and the front of his car not gripping up. The four-time champion finished a lowly 17th, a full second off the pace.

Sainz had to settle for a lap 0.582s down, with Haas' Nico Hulkenberg separating him to the McLarens. Leclerc, after checks to the skid plank due to fears he had damaged it running over a kerb, was compromised in the first sector and was 0.684s down in sixth, with Mercedes' Lewis Hamilton ahead of the seven-time champion.

On the second runs, almost at the same time, Norris made a mistake into Turn 1, whilst Piastri ran wide out of the final corner as he prepared for another hot lap, but it was not a concern to their dominance of the session.

Stake's Valtteri Bottas, on a belated return to form for the team, was seventh, followed by Kevin Magnussen in his Haas, and Alex Albon for Williams.

Albon, however, was seen crawling back to the pits late on in the session, seemingly with an issue to the right-rear of the car. After checks, he did return to the track, albeit providing yet more concern for the team after a run of woe for the team.

As for Colapinto, he finished bottom of the standings, managing only 10 laps due to floor damage that consigned him to the garage for the final 25 minutes.