Azerbaijan GP: Eventful Friday for the Team in Baku

Lewis and George finish P3 and P9 in Azerbaijan on Friday

The second double-header after the summer break takes F1 to Baku for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix at the Baku City Circuit.

The demanding street circuit presented the drivers and teams with a number of challenges on the first day of running. Several cars had to use the emergency exit during both sessions and FP1 was halted three times by red flags.

Lewis set his fastest lap time of 1:43.550 on his third push lap in FP2 with the Soft tyres to end the session in P3. He was separated by just 0.066 seconds from Charles Leclerc in P1 and 0.060 seconds from Sergio Perez in P2. George set his fastest time in the final minutes of the session to finish in P9.

There was a clear trend in the lap times between the long straight in the final sector and the slower corners in the first two sectors with the Silver Arrow losing a couple of tenths in the first sector but gaining them back on the long straight.

After FP1 was interrupted by the red flags, Lewis concentrated on gaining experience with the Hard tyres in the second session of the day. He was happy with the balance of the car. This was followed by a run on the Soft tyres before returning to the Hard compound for longer runs.

George joined the action midway through the second session after the team had worked on his car. Like Lewis, he started FP2 with a run on the Hard tyres. Because of the red flags in FP1, he had been unable to do any long runs on the Medium tyres. After his 12-lap long run on the Hard tyres, George switched to the Soft compound and finished FP2 on it.

Lewis and George Preview Azerbaijan GP

Green Track and Red Flags in the Morning

The run plan for FP1 was for both drivers to start the session on the Medium tyres. This was followed by shorter runs on the Soft compound, the softest tyre in the Pirelli range (C5).

The track was initially still very slippery and green, but of course this would improve as the weekend progressed. In fact, the street circuit was so green at the start that the drivers had to complete a few more laps than originally planned. Almost all drivers struggled for grip.

The session was briefly interrupted after 13 minutes to clear the track of debris. A second red flag came out just before the halfway point of the session when Charles Leclerc crashed his Ferrari into the barriers at Turn 15.

Just as Lewis had completed his push lap on the Soft tyres and set a new fastest time, FP1 was stopped for the third time by a red flag. This time it was Franco Colapinto in the Williams who had hit the wall.

Our duo completed the session with shorter runs on the Soft tyres. Lewis finished FP1 in P2, three tenths behind Max Verstappen, while George was P8.

The team will now analyse the collected data overnight and prepare for FP3 and qualifying. The action continues on Saturday an hour earlier than today. FP3 will start at 12:30 local time (09:30 BST), with Qualifying at the Baku City Circuit starting at 16:00 local time (13:00 BST).

Quiz: Test Your Knowledge of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix

Lewis Hamilton

Today was a really good day. I enjoyed it from the start as the car felt strong from the first laps on track. We made some positive incremental steps on the set-up. There was nothing we had to come back on, and we continued to build throughout.

Pace wise, we didn’t complete a huge number of laps on our long run in FP2. We will have to do some comparisons tonight therefore to see where our relative speed is. Our usual competitors looked strong, but I think we are there or thereabouts. That is encouraging and was our hope coming into this weekend. We will stay cautious and vigilant though. We will work hard tonight to try and find more gains and see what we can do in qualifying tomorrow.

George Russell

Today wasn’t the smoothest Friday we’ve ever had. Unfortunately, we lost a little bit of running time with a precautionary power unit change ahead of FP2. Once we were out on track, I wasn’t completely happy with the balance of the car. I was struggling to get the tyres in the right window and was lacking a little confidence. I’ll work hard overnight to improve on that, step my game up for tomorrow and close the gap.

The good news is that Lewis was looking very quick out there. It encourages us that the car is strong, and we can be competitive this weekend. It looks very close between several teams, with Ferrari in particular looking strong. If we can make improvements overnight though we can aim to be in the mix for qualifying and the race on Sunday.

Andrew Shovlin, Trackside Engineering Director

Lewis had two decent sessions and finished the day happy with the car. His pace also looked sensible although we know the areas we've got to work on. Overall, we're pleased with how his weekend has started. As has been the case in recent races, it looks very tight at the front in terms of single lap, so we'll be working hard overnight to find every bit of lap time.

In comparison to Lewis, George had a more challenging day. He wasn't very happy with the balance of the car in FP1, so we spent that session trying to improve it. Shortly after FP1 finished, we spotted an issue with the power unit that led us to take the cautious approach of swapping it out for FP2. That unfortunately cost him 25 minutes of valuable track time and whilst we got to run both tyres, the programme was compromised. We'll be aiming to recover some of the lost ground with George tomorrow in FP3.

2024 Azerbaijan GP FP2 Result

1	Charles Leclerc	Ferrari	1:43.484	20
2	Sergio Pérez	Red Bull	1:43.490	23
3	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes-AMG	1:43.550	22
4	Carlos Sainz	Ferrari	1:43.950	25
5	Oscar Piastri	McLaren	1:43.983	25
6	Max Verstappen	Red Bull	1:44.029	24
7	Lance Stroll	Aston Martin	1:44.093	24
8	Nico Hülkenberg	Haas	1:44.475	24
9	George Russell	Mercedes-AMG	1:44.536	16
10	Oliver Bearman	Haas	1:44.547	24
11	Yuki Tsunoda	Racing Bulls	1:44.645	24
12	Fernando Alonso	Aston Martin	1:44.683	25
13	Alexander Albon	Williams	1:44.737	25
14	Franco Colapinto	Williams	1:44.749	23
15	Valtteri Bottas	Sauber	1:44.785	24
16	Daniel Ricciardo	Racing Bulls	1:45.056	26
17	Lando Norris	McLaren	1:45.156	25
18	Pierre Gasly	Alpine	1:45.391	22
19	Esteban Ocon	Alpine	1:45.810	24
20	Zhou Guanyu	Sauber	1:45.947	25

2024 Azerbaijan GP FP1 Result

1	Max Verstappen	Red Bull	1:45.546	21
2	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes-AMG	1:45.859	19
3	Sergio Pérez	Red Bull	1:45.922	17
4	Lando Norris	McLaren	1:46.027	18
5	Carlos Sainz	Ferrari	1:46.173	21
6	Oscar Piastri	McLaren	1:46.282	18
7	Fernando Alonso	Aston Martin	1:46.452	19
8	George Russell	Mercedes-AMG	1:46.516	18
9	Charles Leclerc	Ferrari	1:46.608	11
10	Daniel Ricciardo	Racing Bulls	1:46.687	23
11	Oliver Bearman	Haas	1:46.973	23
12	Nico Hülkenberg	Haas	1:47.135	20
13	Lance Stroll	Aston Martin	1:47.184	15
14	Valtteri Bottas	Sauber	1:47.640	18
15	Yuki Tsunoda	Racing Bulls	1:47.708	21
16	Franco Colapinto	Williams	1:47.901	12
17	Alexander Albon	Williams	1:47.955	17
18	Pierre Gasly	Alpine	1:48.712	21
19	Zhou Guanyu	Sauber	1:49.052	19
20	Esteban Ocon	Alpine	2:50.099	3

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