George ends the final Friday of 2022 in P2 ahead of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix

Heading into the final round of the 2022 season, George began FP1 on the Hard compound Pirelli tyres to put in a 1.30.832 on his first run and move into P3.

George continued to improve his lap time as he ran the Hard tyres for the majority of the session, putting in his best lap time of 1.28.956 before switching to Soft compound for the final 15 minutes.

The Brit delivered his fastest time of 1.26.853 to move into P2 on the timings by the end of the first practice.

Focusing on Medium tyre running for the opening stages of FP2, George quickly set a 1.26.852 to take him into P3 on his first run before improving to 1.26.321 but remained in P3.

Switching to the Soft tyres at the midpoint of the session, George delivered his best time of the day with a 1.25.487 to slot into P2.

Making one final tyre change back onto the Medium tyres, George did not improve on his previous time, ending Friday’s action in P2.

‍

George Russell – Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One™ Driver

We had a very strong day in terms of what we've learned, given this is one of the last opportunities to gain learnings for the next season. With the test items that we ran during FP1, especially on my side of the garage, I'm looking forward to 2023 with what we've learned today. For FP2, the track changed completely with the temperature drop. The car felt fast, but I think Red Bull are ahead of us in terms of single lap pace and maybe even more so in the long runs. So, we have some work to do overnight, but compared to Ferrari our performance from what we can tell so far looks reasonable for this weekend. I'd like to think we'll be able to fight for the top 3 in qualifying tomorrow and see where that can take us on Sunday. We will keep our heads down and put in the work overnight.