Max Verstappen led the Ferrari duo of Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz in FP1 of F1 Azerbaijan GP amid a scratchy session for some.
It was not a clean run for Red Bull’s Verstappen as well, en-route the table topping time of 1m43.184s in FP1 of F1 Azerbaijan GP, where he led the Ferrari duo of Leclerc (1m3.227s) and Sainz (1m43.521s), who seemed to have a relatively cleaner run than others.
In fact, Sainz had a Turn 15 excursion, which was common for a lot of drivers. Red Bull’s Sergio Perez slotted in fourth after getting a tow on his quick lap, with McLaren’s Daniel Ricciardo (1m43.732s) doing a better job to be fifth, after Monaco troubles.
AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly (1m3.757s) was sixth from Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton (1m43.893s), with both drivers having off moments at Turn 15. The Brit, meanwhile, did not get a clean run on his soft tyre at all after yellows on couple of laps.
McLaren’s Lando Norris (1m43.996s) was eighth after his fast lap got compromised due to his spin at Turn 16, where he had to do a 360. He also had an off at Turn 2 late in the session, at the same time as Mercedes’s Valtteri Bottas (1m44.891s), who was 10th.
Alpine’s Fernando Alonso was sandwiched between the two, with his best time of 1m44.777s on the medium tyres. The Alfa Romeo pair of Kimi Raikkonen and Antonio Giovinazzi slotted in 11th and 12th after a relatively cleaner run.
Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll was 13th with teammate Sebastian Vettel 15th, where AlphaTauri’s Yuki Tsunoda slotted in 14th. The Aston duo set their best time on the medium tyres, while the Japanese did not have the best of runs, with multiple offs.
He had a big one at Turn 4, where he took some time to reverse his car. He followed it up with couple more offs, although, it didn’t damage the car. Alpine’s Esteban Ocon was only 16th from Williams pair of George Russell and Nicholas Latifi.
The Canadian had a slight brush on the wall, similar to Sainz. The Haas duo of Mick Schumacher and Nikita Mazepin rounded the 20 runners in F1 Azerbaijan GP, where both had offs late in the session. The Russian tapped the wall at Turn 16 but continued.
The German, meanwhile, had a similar off at Turn 4 like Tsunoda, where he struggled a bit to reverse. Overally, the F1 Azerbaijan GP FP1 session, had multiple yellow flag moments, including a brief VSC, to clear debris on track.
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