Charles Leclerc’s FP1 crash threatened to derail Ferrari’s optimism heading into the Azerbaijan Grand Prix weekend, but his chart-topping time in the second free practice session spared his blushes and put the Prancing Horse’s weekend back on track.
The Monegasque overcooked it into Turn 15 and could not back out of hitting the wall, sapping at his running in a stop-start opening hour in Baku. To add further insult to injury, he was none too happy with the handling characteristics of his Ferrari SF-24 on his return to the track in FP2, citing “heavy” steering and worried that his car was “bent somewhere”.
A rethink with set-up ensured he was happier on his return to the circuit later, ultimately paving the way towards a 1m43.484s that nudged him 0.006 seconds clear of Baku specialist Sergio Perez.
Perez appeared to encapsulate a mini-revival at Red Bull after six rounds of toil, at least compared to its devastating form in the early phase of 2024. And it came none too soon, as McLaren appeared to struggle with the low-grip Azerbaijani roads that left those at the papaya team scratching their heads after a below-par Friday.
The story of the day
A thrice red-flagged FP1 session meant that the first hour was difficult to read, although Red Bull will have been nonetheless buoyed by Max Verstappen’s ascent to the top of the order. Debris produced the first stoppage, but the subsequent two yielded longer clean-up operations; Leclerc’s incident at Turn 15 handed the marshals a work-out in the warm early afternoon sun, and newcomer Franco Colapinto ultimately caused another break in proceedings with his Turn 4 wall-bothering antics. Baku notoriously does not discriminate between drivers of different experience levels.
Ferrari at least had Carlos Sainz in the game in the early part of FP2, and the Spaniard led the early burst of medium-tyre runs ahead of the usual qualifying simulations on soft tyres. There, Sainz set the benchmark, although this was subsequently beaten by Perez by almost half a second as the Mexican felt at home on the city course.
Leclerc and Ferrari recovered well from the Monegasque’s wall hit in FP1
Photo by: Dom Romney / Motorsport Images
However, Lewis Hamilton’s lap that was over half-a-tenth shy suggested that Perez’s effort was beatable, as the Briton had completed his run on a used set of softs. Leclerc duly proved that and found a 0.006-second advantage over Perez to…
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