Daniel Ricciardo believes that the clock should stop running during red flag periods in practice sessions.

The Australian's comment comes in the wake of Friday's second session which saw drivers limited in the amount or running they could do due to the red flag periods involving Carlos Sainz and Nico Hulkenberg.

For ten drivers FP2 was the first time they had encountered the Yas Marina track this year as nine of the teams were running rookies, with Red Bull running two.

As a result of the limited running, the session, which unlike FP1 and FP3 features the sort of conditions likely to be encountered in qualifying and the race, the pecking order still remains something of a mystery.

"It's been like that for a long time," said the Australian, one of the ten regular drivers who did take part in FP1, "but it would be nice to stop the clock.

"I did FP1 but a lot of drivers didn't, so they are staring down an FP2 with five laps or something.

"It would have been nice to maybe get a little bit of time back so maybe that's something we can discuss in the drivers' briefing and look for a few more rule changes."

"I think it's a very fair point," said Hulkenberg, the cause of the second red flag. "There are obviously other implications, like how the rest of the schedule has to be changed and TV times and all these things. It's probably not as straightforward as we think.

"But obviously, we lost a good twenty minutes with Carlos' red flag with the barrier repair. So, it's probably going to be a talking point going forward."

However, Valtteri Bottas doesn't agree.

"It's the same for everybody else," he argued. "We have too much practice nowadays anyway. Three practices is too much. We don't need that anymore, what with the simulation tools and simulators we have nowadays."

Check out our Saturday gallery from Yas Marina here.