AZERBAIJAN GP – Charles Leclerc fastest by six thousandths despite steering issues in second practice
Charles Leclerc was fastest in the second practice for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, the Ferrari driver set a 43.484 on the soft tyre which put him six-thousandths of a second ahead of Sergio Perez. However, it was not an easy session for the Monacan as he struggled with a steering issue early on.
Leclerc making up from his crash in FP1 but still complained about his steering being heavy but it caused him to go off at Turn Eight but kept it together to avoid crashing out of the session. Leclerc’s time was set late in the session, when the track would have been quicker than for some of his rivals, after a difficult day that included a crash in the first session.
The Monacan is the favourite for pole position, having qualified at the front three years in a row in Baku. But it was not plain sailing as he complained there was something wrong with the car, with Ferrari told him they could see nothing on their telemetry data, but he said the car felt “not straight” and he needed to come into the pits, saying: “It’s impossible you cannot see that on the data.”
Lewis Hamilton put his Mercedes third six hundredths behind Perez as he put himself four-tenths ahead of Carlos Sainz. Perez’s pace suggests that Red Bull should be more competitive this weekend compared to recent races. Hamilton looked the better of the two Mercedes in the second session, despite a hot seat, which was also an issue in Monza.
However Max Verstappen could only manage sixth over half a second off as he looked to struggle with understeer, causing him to lock up and nearly hit the wall at Turn Five. Oscar Piastri put his McLaren fifth half a second off Leclerc and ahead of Verstappen by nearly half a second.
But teammate and Verstappen’s title rival Lando Norris was seventeenth, he was forced to abort his lap which looked good enough for fourth after coming across a slow-moving Pierre Gasly. The Frenchman had a battery issue but did his best to get out Norris’ way.
This weekend is once again shaping up to be a continuation of F1’s extremely competitive races during the European season, with six different winners in the last seven Grands Prix. The top four teams in the constructors covered by half a second with Ferrari the only team to have both cars in the top five.
Norris would have likely been in that group as well if he hadn’t been caught up by Gasly’s battery issues, with the Alpine driver apologising and reporting that he was trying to deal with battery issues.
Lance Stroll put his Aston Martin seventh six-tenths behind Verstappen and ahead of Nico Hulkenberg. George Russell spilt the Haas’s after he went a hundredth faster than Ollie Bearman, who has been brought in to replace Kevin Magnussen who was given a race ban following an accident at Monza.
Russell had another difficult session as the team found an engine issue between FP1 and FP2 causing the start of his afternoon to be delayed, and the session started as it began with the team calling him in early with another issue.
Yuki Tsunoda put his RB eleventh he missed out on the top ten by a tenth as he went nearly four hundredths ahead of Fernando Alonso and Alex Albon. Albon going just over a hundredth faster than his Williams teammate Franco Colapinto. While Valtteri Bottas was fifteenth.
Daniel Ricciardo was a tenth faster than his former teammate Norris after he was compromised on his soft run. Pierre Gasly was eighteenth over four-tenths faster than his Alpine teammate Esteban Ocon, who also had an MGU-H issue in FP1 resulting in a power unit change. Guanyu Zhou completed the field four hundredths behind Ocon.