AZERBAIJAN GP – Charles Leclerc fastest by quarter of a second ahead of the two Red Bulls
Charles Leclerc was fastest in second practice ahead of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, the Ferrari driver set a 43.222 which put him almost a quarter of a second faster than the Red Bull of Sergio Perez. The Monacan set his fastest time on the soft tyre as the Ferrari looked to have the slight edge over Red Bull.
Leclerc’s fastest time came after he went fastest in the first and second sectors resulting in a big gain in time thanks to a slipstream from Nicolas Latifi, that moved him ahead of the Red Bulls and his teammate Carlos Sainz. Max Verstappen could only manage third following a disrupted session caused by the continuation of the DRS issues which affected him in FP1.
His qualifying simulations were also interrupted by traffic, and he only managed two race laps at the end of the session. The understeer issues he had complained about in FP1 appeared to continue, as he looked to lose the rear early on in the second part of the session, after switching to a similar set-up to Perez.
When he did make it out onto track he managed to initially close to within a tenth of Leclerc, before the Ferrari improved when they both switched to the soft tyres. Leclerc is looking to take his first win in two months following Red Bull’s run of four race wins in a row.
Leclerc is aware that though it’s only round eight he needs to start beating his title rival Verstappen on track. His teammate Sainz also looked as if he could have been in the mix, but on his second attempt, he was forced to abort after Perez went wide on the next lap.
Fernando Alonso took advantage of the Ferrari of Carlos Sainz struggling in the closing moments to sneak into fourth going almost a tenth and a half faster. Alpine has looked quick at street circuits all season, with Sainz having to abort his final run on the soft tyre after going wide down the escape road he took advantage to go fourth. While Pierre Gasly put his Alpha Tauri sixth, a quarter of a second ahead of George Russell.
Both Mercedes appeared to struggle, the porpoising issue that the team had been struggling with all season appeared to raise its head again. Russell bounced his way along the straights and did not looking competitive at any point finishing seventh as he spilt the Alpha Tauri’s going five hundredths faster than Yuki Tsunoda.
Esteban Ocon put his Alpine ninth the Frenchman going a hundredth faster than the McLaren of Lando Norris, who rounded out the top ten. Norris had started FP2 by making a mistake at Turn Three and locked up going down the escape road, followed by an impressive five point turn to get back on track.
Lewis Hamilton still appeared to be the Mercedes driver struggling the most, he was twelfth two-thousandths of a second behind Sebastian Vettel as he spitted the two Aston Martin’s with Lance Stroll setting an identical time as the seven times champion. Daniel Ricciardo was fourteenth going two tenths faster than the two Alfa Romeo’s, Valtteri Bottas a quarter of a second faster than teammate Guanyu Zuho.
Kevin Magnussen put his Haas seventeenth going ahead of the Williams of Alex Albon. Their respective teammates couldn’t recover from their issues in FP1 running at the back Mick Schumacher nineteenth and Nicolas Latifi twentieth.