Andrew Benson
BBC Sport’s chief F1 writer at Yas Marina

The never-ending story of Toro Rosso engine penalties continues - a ninth MGU-H for Brendon Hartley. It's a 10-place penalty for him. For now.

Speaking of Ricciardo, he has just gone second quickest on the ultras-softs, with Felipe Massa, competing in his "last ever Formula 1 race" for the second season running, is currently third fastest.

This is how the top 10 stand in the drivers' championship. The main issue at the top this weekend is that fourth place, which is currently in the possession of Red Bull's Daniel Ricciardo, who is seven points in front of Kimi Raikkonen.

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Chris Marsh: Vettel: B-. Performed well but may have used his teammates to ensure his success. Needs to learn to play better with others.

Bottas: C+. Had a good start to the year but has struggled to compare with his peers. May need additional tuition. Note: Nico Rosberg is free at the moment.

Toast Malone‏: Top driver is Lewis. He's proved he is the top driver with winning the championship.

Meanwhile, back on the track, Lewis Hamilton, who was the fastest, has gone even faster with a time of 1:41.135. Valtteri Bottas is still the second fastest, with Lance Stroll in his Williams, third quickest.

Image source, Getty Images

Some details for all you technical fans out there.

BBC Sport app users may need to click on the link to see the tweet.

5 Live

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner has just been talking to BBC Radio 5 live. He said: "We are not going to do too much (in this session), we are protecting mileage the best we can and hopefully it can hold together. This track is a track of two halves half is power sensitive, half is about cornering.

"It has been a year of two halves, the first half was frustrating we had issues when we were on the back foot and the reliability has been horrible - too many engine failures. But the second half of the season, winning two grand prixs and the races we have had, our drivers have been fantastic.

"Both Max and Daniel have driven brilliantly so hopefully they can finish the season on a high."

Asked about a potential new contract for Ricciardo, Horner replies: "That is the plan, hopefully we will have some serious discussion early next year."

Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas are the only two drivers to set a time so far, with Hamilton setting an early benchmark of 1:41.659.

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Tom Clarkson
BBC Radio 5 live sports extra commentator at Yas Marina

It is a beautiful afternoon in the pit lane. It's a frustrating session, nothing like the conditions we will get in qualifying. The track is much hotter than it will be and only a limited amount that teams will learn from this session.

Micky-boy: 2017 top driver is Lewis Hamilton. Remained steadfast and calm right from when Ferrari clearly faster in pre-season. Worked with Mercedes team to grind down and finally nail Ferrari. Ferocious competitor.

Daniel Eckersley: Rating Marcus Ericsson's season - ZZZ. Not sure if that's a grade or just me falling asleep.

BBC Radio 5 live

Jack Nicholls, Tom Clarkson and Andrew Benson are joined by GP3 Champion and aspiring Formula 1 driver George Russell ahead of his outing for Force India today.

The team ask whether Robert Kubica could be driving for Williams in 2018 and we hear from 2017 world champion Lewis Hamilton and Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel ahead of the final race of the season.

Listen to the preview below.

And we are under way with practice session one. We have 90 minutes of practice.

We have two changes to the usual line-up as Antonio Giovinazzi is in for Kevin Magnussen at Haas and George Russell steps in for Esteban Ocon in the Force India.

Some fans have a tough life. Some are relaxing with a beer by the pool in the sun. Not jealous. At all. Honest.

BBC Radio 5 live

We have live commentary right now (online only), so click on the play button at the top of this page to listen along to all the action.

You're in Abu Dhabi, so what do you do? How about head off to the beach and play football.

That's what the Renault team did a couple of days ago. Fierce on the track and judging by some of the meaty challenges put in, they are fierce on the pitch / beach as well.

Watch how they got on with the video below. BBC Sport app users may need to click on the link to watch

Fair to say it's a pretty spectacular setting this weekend. Check out this video from McLaren last night.

Andrew Benson
BBC Sport’s chief F1 writer at Yas Marina

The qualifying record at Red Bull does not look great for Daniel Ricciardo this year - he is 13-6 down on team-mate Max Verstappen, who he edged last year, although on average pace there is less than 0.1secs between them. The Australian is ahead on points, but a lot of that is down to the Dutchman hitting reliability problems in races he was going well at early in the year.

Ricciardo said: "My season has been good. There have been some great races, but I would love all 20 to be great and not all 20 have been. (I will try) to assess the year and then try to understand what I could have improved. I’m sure there is on track stuff but also off-track. Give next year a proper crack.

"I have been pretty pleased with the year but I still have some improvements to make. Max improved this year from last year. I won’t say he came a long way, because he was always there, and next year it is going to be a lot of fun and I am looking forward to that.”

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Max Verstappen has certainly enjoyed the second part of the season a lot more than the first. He has finished in the top five in each of the past five races, including two victories and a second place.

He describes the track as 'quite interesting with technical challenges'.

And that leads in nicely to our first debate point of the weekend.

This is the last race of the season so a good time to discuss who has excelled and who has disappointed in 2017.

We want you to pick an F1 driver who has raced in 2017 (it can be any of them) and sum up their season performance. Feel free to give them a grade or a mark as well if you want to.

Tweet us using the hashtag #bbcf1 or write on the BBC Sport Facebook page., external

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Andrew Benson
BBC Sport’s chief F1 writer at Yas Marina

Force India’s Esteban Ocon came up with a good stat on Thursday. He pointed out that the team would have clinched fourth place in the constructors’ championship even with only one of their drivers scoring - whether it was either the Frenchman or team-mate Sergio Perez.

Ocon has been one of the stars of the season - being taken out by Haas driver Romain Grosjean on the first lap in Brazil last time out ended a record of finishing every race he had started, an achievement that ran for 27 grands prix, stretching back to his debut in Belgium for Manor last year. Ocon had been in the points this year for all but one of those finishes and he has come on increasingly strong as the season has developed, out-qualifying Perez in six of the last nine races and four of the last five.

He said progressing is “what I have tried to do since the beginning. It is also why I took a bit less risk sometimes to try to finish the races and pick up as much mileage as I could and pick up as many things as I could, basically.

"I was pretty pleased with how I improved and how I learned things and how it felt easier through the year, especially the summer break, coming back on the tracks was a big help.” His performances have impressed Mercedes, whose junior driver programme he is a part of, and he is very much on their radar as a possible team-mate for Lewis Hamilton in 2019.

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