Sergio Perez was fastest in the first practice session ahead of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix. The Red Bull driver set a 44.475 on going a tenth ahead of the Ferrari of Charles Leclerc, who spilt the two Red Bulls after going just over two tenths faster than Max Verstappen.
The two leading teams Red Bull and Ferrari once again appeared to be leading at the front, with Verstappen going two tenths faster than Carlos Sainz then there was a half-a-second gap to the Alpine of Fernando Alonso.
The two teams appeared once again to be equally matched but appeared to be generating the lap times in very different ways. Perez was however four seconds off Leclerc’s pole position from last June.
The Ferrari’s were losing several tenths of a second in the final sector, which primarily comprises the long final ‘straight’. If they struggle to get on top of that it will make them vulnerable to Red Bull overtaking them in the race. Verstappen also suffered a spin towards the end of the session at Fifteen but managed to keep it out the wall.
He somehow managed to rotate the car without hitting the wall on the outside. Verstappen complained that the car was suffering from understeer when he was off throttle coming into that corner.
Alonso was nearly a tenth faster than the Mercedes of Lewis Hamilton, as the Mercedes appeared to continue to struggle with porpoising. Several drivers expressed frustration via team radio throughout the session, as they tried to rubber in the street circuit in Baku
Yuki Tsunoda put his Alpha Tauri sixth-fastest splitting the two Mercedes after going nine hundredths of a second faster than George Russell. The Englishman complained about the bouncing in the flat-out section along Neftchilar Avenue, the long section between Turn sixteen and One.
Hamilton was three hundredths quicker than Russell. The second AlphaTauri of Pierre Gasly was ninth fastest, the Frenchman almost a tenth faster than the Alpine of Esteban Ocon while just over a second off his teammate Tsunoda as he rounded out the top ten.
Lando Norris put his McLaren eleventh the Englishman appearing to struggle to unlock the performance from the McLaren the team has shown in recent races leaving him down in eleventh. He was over a tenth and a half faster than the Aston Martin of Lance Stroll with Kevin Magnussen thirteenth after going a quarter of a second quicker than Sebastian Vettel.
It was a difficult session Magnussen’s teammate Mick Schumacher the Haas driver who needs a good weekend after crashes in Jeddah and Monaco, was left slide lined after suffering issues with the car leaving him twentieth.
Valtteri Bottas put his Alfa Romeo fifteenth going almost a tenth faster than teammate Guanyu Zuho. Alex Albon put his Williams seventeenth going ahead of Daniel Ricciardo by almost four-tenths of a second, he split the Williams with Nicolas Latifi nineteenth.
