Charles Leclerc lead Ferrari team-mate Sebastian Vettel to a Prancing Horse one-two in the afternoon Free Practice 2 session at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.

 

 

Leclerc and Vettel traded fastest lap times during their qualifying simulations runs on the long 6.003km Baku City Circuit with the softer C4 red-marked compounds.

 

Leclerc popped in the benchmark of a 1:42.872, which put the young Monegasque driver 0.324 seconds clear of Vettel and 0.669 seconds ahead of Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton who was third.

 

Teams were eager to make most of the time available after nearly all of the morning session was abandoned after ROKiT Williams Racing’s George Russell ran over a loose drain cover.

 

Hamilton took a trip down the run off area at turn eight but recovered to put his Silver Arrow on top of the time-sheets earlier on with the Medium C3 rubber.

 

Leclerc at first was only just behind, but then set a 1:44.748 to jump the Briton for position one despite hitting the wall with the left hand side of his SF90 racer at turn seven, shortly before the session was stopped after SportPesa Racing Point’s Lance Stroll crashed.

 

Stroll suffered a moment at the turn two left-hander entry and opted to bail out of the corner and head down the escape road, only to smack the barrier with his front-left wheel having decided to abort too late.

 

The Canadian reported to his team over the radio that he “just got a snap on entry” and the damage to his RP19 racer meant he could not return to the pits, forcing to stop the session 15 minutes in.

 

After the 11 minute delay, Vettel was the first of the field to emerge on softs but had to pull out of his initial flyer after running down the turn three escape road.

 

Leclerc improved on his first hot lap but then momentarily fell behind Ferrari team-mate Vettel’s time of a 1:43.196 before reclaiming top of the time-sheets with a 1:42.872, which stood for the rest of the 90 minute session.

 

Red Bull’s Max Verstappen was one of the last drivers in the field to do a qualifying simulation run and put his Honda-powered RB15 to fourth place and 0.252 seconds behind championship leader Hamilton.

 

The other Mercedes of Valtteri Bottas who made an early trip down the run off area on his first hot lap, ended up a further two-tenths back in fifth and comfortably ahead of Toro Rosso’s Daniil Kvyat who was sixth quickest.

 

Kvyat encountered a power steering issue on his out-lap, forcing the Russian to return to the pits for it to be changed.

 

He eventually returned to the track during the second half of the 90 minute session, setting a lap time 1.305 seconds adrift of Leclerc’s benchmark to pip McLaren’s Carlos Sainz to sixth, before crashing out and causing a nine minute red flag with 26 left on the clock.

 

Kvyat lost the rear of his STR14 at the turn seven right hander, sliding into the wall, initially hitting it with his left-rear then the left-front.

 

The second Toro Rosso of Alexander Albon also finished the day in the top ten, taking eighth fastest and just 0.033 seconds slower than Sainz and 0.022 seconds quicker than Red Bull Racing’s Pierre Gasly who was ninth, with the latter taking a few trips down the escape road during the session.

 

To make matters worse, Gasly will also be forced to start the Azerbaijan Grand Prix from the pit-lane after missing the weighbridge summoning area.

 

McLaren’s Lando Norris also had a run down the turn three escape road on what was meant to be his first flyer, but on his second attempt was good enough to round out the top ten and 1.423 seconds adrift.

 

Haas F1 Team’s Kevin Magnussen was 11th quickest and ahead of Alfa Romeo Racing’s Antonio Giovinazzi who was 12th, Racing Point’s Sergio Perez who ended 13th and the other C38 Alfa of Kimi Raikkonen who took 14th.

 

Renault’s Daniel Ricciardo FP2 session ended abruptly after running out of tyres – with major flat-spotting on his soft tyres due to a massive lock up.

 

The Australian managed to finish 15th and in-front of Romain Grosjean’s 16th placed Haas and Renault team-mate Nico Hulkenberg who was 17th.

 

Stroll’s earlier pace on the medium rubber was good enough for 18th place and ahead of Williams’ Robert Kubica – with the Silverstone-based squad close to getting the Canadian back out on track at the end of the session but was unable to make it.

 

The aforementioned Russell did not participate in FP2 after his morning accident, as monocoque damage meant his FW42 racer is now being rebuilt with a spare chassis and floor.

 

Selected Driver Quotes

 

Charles Leclerc, #16, Scuderia Ferrari SF90: “After a day like today, it’s difficult to get a clear picture of where we all stand, especially in terms of long run pace, when I think traffic was a factor. In qualifying trim, I felt comfortable, but also in this aspect, we will have to wait until tomorrow to get a clearer picture. However, we still have quite a bit of work to do to get the maximum out of the SF90 and that’s what we will concentrate on in the final free practice session. If we manage that, then we can be competitive.”

 

Sebastian Vettel, #5, Scuderia Ferrari SF90: “It was a rather complicated Friday, because we weren’t able to do much running and the track was slippery and dusty. But it was fun all the same. So it took a while to get into a rhythm but overall I feel comfortable with the car. Maybe tomorrow we should be able to get a better idea of where we stand, because while I felt good in the car, there’s definitely still room for improvement. Tomorrow, we will continue working as it’s vital to get into a rhythm and have a good feel for the car and be totally confident about the track. I think qualifying will be very close, because I imagine our rivals will be very fast tomorrow.”

 

Lewis Hamilton, #44, Mercedes AMG Petronas Motorsport F1 W10 EQ Power+: “It’s been a bit of an odd day, but I still enjoyed it. FP2 went really well, I was feeling good out there and I was more comfortable in the car than I was last year. However, the Ferraris are clearly very quick and it looks like they’re quite a bit ahead of us, so we’ll need to investigate to see where we are losing time compared to them. It’s unlikely that we will find seven tenths over night, but we’ll do everything we can to push the car in the right direction. Our long run pace looked a little bit stronger than our short run pace, so we’ll need to try and find out why. It should be a good fight tomorrow; I’m always down for a fight and I think that’s what the fans want to see, so I’m looking forward to tomorrow.”

 

Valtteri Bottas, #77, Mercedes AMG Petronas Motorsport F1 W10 EQ Power+: “It’s been a fairly disrupted day which made FP2 more important than usual. We tried to maximise the time on track, adding a few more laps to our original plan for the afternoon after FP1 was suspended. I’m not really pleased with the laps I did, but it’s always a bit tricky to find the rhythm in Baku and it takes a bit of time. It wasn’t easy to get the Medium compound up to the right temperatures today, but corner speeds will increase due to track evolution, so we should be able to get a bit more energy into the tyres tomorrow. Our long runs felt good and the pace didn’t look too bad either, but we are a bit behind on single lap pace. Ferrari looked really strong, particularly on the short runs, so it will be a tough fight tomorrow.”

 

Max Verstappen, #33, Aston Martin Red Bull Racing-Honda RB15: “The lack of running this morning didn’t really hurt us as it was the same for everyone and FP2 is always the most important session on a Friday. The track is very slippery and as you could see it was very easy to lock up or run wide, so it was important to complete as many laps as possible and get used to the track conditions. You have to drive to the limit of the car with the grip you have and you build up lap by lap, especially on a low grip street track like this, and you have to be ready to adapt. I’m satisfied with what we achieved today and now we will look into the data as there are always areas to improve, but it is mostly fine tuning. We don’t really have expectations for tomorrow yet and with only one practice session everyone can still improve a lot, but the initial balance seems fine and we completed a good number of laps on both tyre compounds.”

 

George Russell, #63, ROKiT Williams Racing FW42: “It has been a tough day, it’s a shame for the guys to spend yesterday preparing the car to only do a couple of laps. I was going down the straight and I felt a big bang through the chassis and everything turned off; it’s just unfortunate. The plan right now is to go into debrief, listen to Robert’s comments and see what the guys have planned for tomorrow. Overall, today has been a bit of a frustration, but we must make the most of the situation and I will remain positive for the weekend ahead.”

 

Lance Stroll, #18, SportPesa Racing Point F1 Team RP19: “It’s been a tough start to the weekend, we lost track time this morning but it was the same for everybody. FP2 had started better: I felt a good rhythm with the car in the laps I did this afternoon, but I had a snap on entry coming into turn two, the rear came out on me and that was that, I ended up in the wall. It’s frustrating, but it is what it is. The team did their best to get the car back out on track for the end of the session, but we just missed out by the smallest of margins. We will look at the data we have overnight and focus on getting as many laps as we can tomorrow and take it from there.”

 

Daniel Ricciardo, #3, Renault F1 Team R.S.19: “Today was a little bit stop-start. In the second session, I had one clean lap which wasn’t too bad at the time. We had two brake lock-ups on two sets of tyres which resulted in two big flat spots. We couldn’t continue after that. We have a few things to sort out ahead of tomorrow, especially trying to get the car happier on the brakes.”

 

Antonio Giovinazzi, #99, Alfa Romeo Racing C38: “Again I could only drive one session today. For me it is becoming quite normal as I also missed FP1 in China – at the next race I’ll only show up on Saturday. Joking aside, FP2 was not too bad and I got quite a few laps in. I’m happy with the car and even if I’ve been given a 10-place grid penalty I think something is possible here.”

 

Kimi Raikkonen, #7, Alfa Romeo Racing C38: “Obviously it was far from ideal for everybody and we looked like amateurs here today. It should not be like this. It’s up to the FIA to make sure that the track is like it’s supposed to be. It seems to be that every year some drainage hole comes loose, or something slides up. Luckily nobody got hurt, but it obviously destroyed everybody’s day.”

 

Daniil Kvyat, #26, Scuderia Toro Rosso-Honda STR14: “It was quite a strange day, there was no running in FP1 besides an installation lap, then in FP2 something happened with the steering wheel, so we had to take a break to fix it. This meant we lost some important running and, consequently, I had to find the limits of the track very quickly on my next run. Unfortunately, I locked up and had an oversteer moment which led to some contact with the wall. On the positive side, the feeling of the car was very good before the accident, so we’ll keep pushing to improve even further tomorrow.”

 

Formula 1 Socar Azerbaijan Grand Prix 2019 Free Practice 2 Classification

 

POS	DRIVER	CAR	TIME	GAP	LAPS
1	Charles Leclerc	Scuderia Ferrari	1m42.872s	–	28
2	Sebastian Vettel	Scuderia Ferrari	1m43.196s	0.324s	28
3	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes AMG Petronas Motorsport	1m43.541s	0.669s	31
4	Max Verstappen	Aston Martin Red Bull Racing-Honda	1m43.793s	0.921s	24
5	Valtteri Bottas	Mercedes AMG Petronas Motorsport	1m44.003s	1.131s	31
6	Daniil Kvyat	Scuderia Toro Rosso-Honda	1m44.177s	1.305s	9
7	Carlos Sainz Jr.	McLaren-Renault F1 Team	1m44.183s	1.311s	27
8	Alexander Albon	Scuderia Toro Rosso-Honda	1m44.216s	1.344s	33
9	Pierre Gasly	Aston Martin Red Bull Racing-Honda	1m44.240s	1.368s	24
10	Lando Norris	McLaren-Renault F1 Team	1m44.295s	1.423s	32
11	Kevin Magnussen	Rich Energy Haas F1 Team	1m44.901s	2.029s	25
12	Antonio Giovinazzi	Alfa Romeo Racing	1m45.366s	2.494s	31
13	Sergio Perez	SportPesa Racing Point F1 Team	1m45.436s	2.564s	28
14	Kimi Raikkonen	Alfa Romeo Racing	1m45.482s	2.610s	30
15	Daniel Ricciardo	Renault F1 Team	1m45.483s	2.611s	15
16	Romain Grosjean	Rich Energy Haas F1 Team	1m45.618s	2.746s	31
17	Nico Hulkenberg	Renault F1 Team	1m46.717s	3.845s	24
18	Lance Stroll	SportPesa Racing Point F1 Team	1m47.875s	5.003s	8
19	Robert Kubica	ROKiT Williams Racing	1m48.111s	5.239s	27