The Friday in F1 Azerbaijan GP was close battle between the Top 4 teams in slippery conditions which caught out several drivers.
The cloudy conditions made the track slippery on Friday in F1 Azerbaijan GP which caught out several drivers in both the sessions. While FP1 saw three red flag stoppages, both the sessions saw several yellow flag moments due to offs.
The Top 4 teams, though, ended up being close to each other. Even Red Bull found some pace with both Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez doing well to start the F1 weekend. They are still chasing balance but are placed well considering how they were in Monza.
They had Ferrari in the mix too. Despite his FP1 crash and steering wheel issues in FP2, Charles Leclerc set the pace. He clarified that the issue in the second session was not due to the crash in first. The Monegasque was not alone as Carlos Sainz too fared well.
He completed the running without larger dramas apart from lock-ups. Out of the two McLaren drivers, Lando Norris didn’t feel straight up good. He stated that they need to find a lot more pace than Mercedes, Red Bull and Ferrari has to.
His teammate Oscar Piastri felt slightly better, just like how Lewis Hamilton did as opposed to George Russell, who had issues of his own. Aston Martin spent time learning the floor where Lance Stroll felt better on the new one in FP2 after Fernando Alonso’s trial in FP1.
Perez: “It was definitely a good, solid day. We did good progress from FP1 to FP2, so we just have to make sure that we’re able to progress from here. I think we can definitely be in the mix for tomorrow. I think we’re heading in the right direction, we’re finding that we can put a little bit more together the car. There’s still a long way to go, but it’s promising what we’ve seen so far. I think tomorrow anything can happen, really, so we just have to keep our head down and hopefully deliver a great couple of laps. Well, we only need one in Q3.”
Verstappen: “I think overall a good day. We learned quite a bit. Now it’s just about tidying up the things that we tried. But I think, so far, we have been more competitive this weekend, so that’s a positive. It’s also the track, it’s very slippery, a lot of 90-degree corners, so if you have a tiny lock, sometimes you hold the brake to not hit the wall or whatever, just out of precaution. But, for sure, FP2 was a bit more difficult for me, so like I said, we just need to get the balance together a bit more. I’m quite confident that we can be competitive.”
Norris: “We’re quite a long way off. I’m having to push way too much to try and get a lap time out of it. I think where Oscar was is kind of more where we are, so I think if we nail it we’re just about there. But I’m sure they’re not even close to nailing it yet. I think we have quite a lot to find honestly comparing to Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull – they’re all very similar – and then there’s a good three or four tenths gap back to us. A lot of work for us to do. There’s been plenty of circuits where we’ve not been quick, people just love to believe that we’re the best everywhere but we’re not. We’ve been doing a very good job so far and I think other teams haven’t. I think with these kinds of track conditions Mercedes are going to be very quick. It’s just very slidey out there, you know, whereas I think we perform very well at the higher grip circuits naturally. Finding it difficult but we’ll work hard tonight. The car’s still not bad, I’m sure we can still get a lap time out of it but we’re not as clearly ahead as we have been at other races.”
Leclerc: “I mean, the crash, there’s not much to go into. I braked a little bit too much on the right, the track was still dirty, I locked up and it was too late to go to the right [run-off] – so I went into the wall. That wasn’t great to start the weekend, but I still had a lot of confidence in the car, so there wasn’t much problem. Then the thing is that when we started FP2 there was an actual problem on the car that we saw later on, once I stopped, and we changed that particular part. It was nothing to do with the crash before, so the mechanics have done a really good job. We just had a problem with one new part that we had just put on the car.
“I won’t go too much into details but that was obviously giving me a very strange feeling with the steering wheel. We changed that, went again and then it was fine. It was not as many laps as what I would have hoped for on this Friday, but competitive anyway. It’s very tight [at the front], but it’s very difficult to see also with different engine modes of everybody. It’s one of the tracks that I quite like and we’ve been pretty quick in the past, but that doesn’t mean it will be the case for tomorrow. We still have to work on the car, there’s plenty to do to improve. There’s the driving to be improved quite a bit, because I was still taking a little bit my references in FP2, but again, we are fast, so that’s a good sign. Hopefully just more to come tomorrow.”
Russell: “Not sure what happened, we just knew we had to change the engine as we had a problem after FP1. Obviously delayed the session and then we had a problem at the end of the session too. So it wasn’t our finest Friday that’s for sure. I was definitely off the pace compared to Lewis, I was struggling with confidence in the car and getting the tyres in the right window, so I need to step up my game a bit for tomorrow and try and close that gap.”
Alonso: “We’ve picked up useful data across the two Free Practice sessions which we’ll analyse with the engineers tonight. We tried a few different things today so we’ll study that overnight and work out the best route to take with car setup ahead of Qualifying.”
The lower half saw Haas pair of Oliver Bearman and Nico Hulkenberg put themselves in a good position. The former is getting the taste of a full weekend and looked in a goodish shape ahead of his teammate, who felt he didn’t manage to get a quick lap in.
The Visa Cash App RB pair had a mixed run too where Yuki Tsunoda felt better as the day progressed, but Daniel Ricciardo did not feel 100% from FP1 to FP2. Franco Colapinto, meanwhile, accepted blame for crashing his Williams F1 car in FP1.
Despite that, he looked good as per his lap times being close to Alexander Albon. But both Kick Sauber and Alpine pair of drivers did not enjoy the day, as all four F1 drivers feel they have much to do in order to get itself in Top 10.
Bearman: “It was nice to do a full Friday, building step-by-step without having to rush anything. I was quite happy with how the day went and how the day finished-up, and I was confident in the car which is important on a track like this. Tomorrow, my goal is to be proud of my performance; that’s going to be done by improving and finishing at a level I know I’m capable of, and having a clean performance.”
Tsunoda: “It started pretty tricky, but we made good progress between FP1 and FP2, just not quite enough to be in the top of the midfield. It’s difficult on this kind of track to have nice balance everywhere, but we managed to improve session by session, we just need to work on some fine tuning and fix the bouncing I experienced in FP2. We have a couple of ideas already on how we can improve before FP3 tomorrow, to turn it around for a good qualifying.”
Colapinto: “The crash was a rookie mistake as I was still getting to grips with the track, and everything was new. Taking that away, we had a good second session. The heroes of the day are the mechanics. They did an amazing job to repair my car in time for FP2. I’m proud of the team for all their efforts. I was really happy to be able to get another session under my belt to help build my confidence up. It was a small mistake but here it can cost you a lot. The car is in a good position and I’m feeling more comfortable lap after lap. I need to keep working to understand how the overheating and degradation works. This is still a process as it’s only my second race and it’s a street track. It’s a tough start but I think we’re doing a good job.”
Ocon: “We had some issues in Free Practice 1 and we had to catch up in Free Practice 2 this afternoon, as we missed some valuable running time. As a result, it was a very busy second session for us and we managed to do a lot of work during that hour on track. We have items to be working on this evening and tomorrow to bring more performance to the car. We know what to work on with the engineers now to get ready for, hopefully, a better day tomorrow.”
Bottas: “It was quite difficult out there in FP1. We had quite limited running due to the red flags, and the grip conditions started from a very low level, which caused us some initial struggles. We had to make changes to the setup and downforce levels for the car to start feeling better in the second practice session. While we’re heading in the right direction now, we’re still lacking overall grip and a bit of balance, which we’ll need to work on overnight. Our focus will be on finding that extra performance and improving the car’s behaviour before qualifying tomorrow.”
Here’s how F1 Azerbaijan GP FP1 panned out
Here’s how F1 Azerbaijan GP FP2 panned out
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