Hello fellow F1 fanatics, this is your F1 Newsbites making the Azerbaijan Grand Prix weekend, from the Baku City Circuit in Azerbaijan. Let’s dive right into what has been happening so far.

 

 

Ricciardo quickest in Azerbaijan GP FP2

 

Red Bull Racing’s Daniel Ricciardo topped the second practice session timesheets at Formula 1’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix at the Baku City Circuit, leading Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen by 0.069 seconds.

 

Ricciardo jumped to the front 10 minutes into the hour and a half long session with his first quick lap on the red-branded supersoft rubber.

 

The Australian then made an improvement on his benchmark to set a 1:43.512 before the rest of the field switched to the more faster purple-marked ultrasofts for qualifying simulation runs.

 

While drivers were struggling with the challenge of avoiding their rears overheating on their ultra runs, Ricciardo was still the man to beat when he went out on his qualifying simulation run despite Mercedes’ Valtteri Bottas setting a time just 0.058 seconds slower.

 

Ricciardo then set three timed runs with cool down laps in between to let the tyres recover.

 

He improved his first timed run first to a 1:43.017, then posted a 1:42.816 and lastly the quickest time of all a 1:42.795 seconds.

 

This kept the Australian on top, although Raikkonen came close on his ultrasoft run with a slipstream tucked right behind the Mercedes of Lewis Hamilton to go second.

 

Ricciardo’s Red Bull team-mate Max Verstappen who crashed in the opening practice session, survived a light tap off the wall to post the first quickest time, just 0.116 adrift.

 

The Dutchman also locked up at turn three and took a trip into the run off area on his first run.

 

Bottas fell to fourth, 0.775 seconds off the pace but just over a quarter of a tenth of a second in-front of Mercedes team-mate Lewis Hamilton.

 

Hamilton set his best effort of a 1:43.603 on his second timed run on the ultras, but twice posted the quickest first sector of the session and then was unable to complete the laps after locking up and running wide. The second attempt was the fastest first sector of all the 90 minute session.

 

McLaren’s Fernando Alonso was one of the last drivers to post a time on the ultras, but when the Spaniard did it he was the sixth quickest of the session and almost a second off of Ricciardo’s benchmark.

 

Force India’s Esteban Ocon was seventh quickest and ahead of Renault’s Carlos Sainz who was eighth and Kevin Magnussen’s Ferrari-powered Haas VF-18 who was ninth.

 

Renault’s Nico Hulkenberg completed the top 10, setting his time after changing the plank underneath his RS18 racer following his first stint.

 

The German later complained over the radio on a suspected braking problem, but the team responded that there was not any issue.

 

Current Championship leader Sebastian Vettel endured a difficult session, finishing the session 11th quickest and 1.332 adrift of the pace after several trips into the runoff areas with struggles under-braking.

 

Vettel set his best second and third sector efforts on his second quick lap on the ultras, but a slow first sector mean he could not improve on the lap he did on his first attempt.

 

The other Force India of Sergio Perez was 12th fastest and in-front of Haas’ Romain Grosjean who was 13th and Williams Martini Racing’s Lance Stroll who took 14th.

 

Toro Rosso’s Pierre Gasly ended the day 15th quickest and ahead of Sauber’s Charles Leclerc who ran off at the turn one escape road and finished 16th and the other Mercedes-powered Williams of Sergey Sirotkin who was 17th.

 

The other Toro Rosso of Brendon Hartley was 2.256 seconds adrift in 18th place while McLaren’s Stoffel Vandoorne and Sauber’s Marcus Ericsson finished at the rear.

 

Exhaust Blowing and Trick Engine Settings

 

 

One story making the news in the F1 paddock is the exhaust blowing and trick engine mode settings, which the sport’s governing body, the FIA have sent out a warning to the teams that they will be tightening up the rules around exhaust blowing.

 

Although exhaust blown diffusers were banned ahead of the new 1.6L V6 Hybrid era in 2014, the FIA have become increasingly aware that teams have find ways around the lockdown through trick engine modes.

 

Exhaust blowing helps create downforce on parts of the car which would not normally be stimulated as the car slows down.

 

One big question is how the team or teams are getting exhaust blowing possible when the car is off throttle. The Internal Combustion Engine or ICE acts as big air pump when the driver gets off the throttle into the braking zone.

 

The exhaust gases then imitate what would happen as the car pushes through the air at a much quicker speed, making it more stable, grippy and better lap time.

 

The FIA are reacting to it now because they received numerous questions on the issue but at least one team has made a complaint on the matter.

 

The FIA have said that they do not accept engine modes specifically designed to increase the exhaust flow in corners. That their intentions are to control usage of engine modes on a case-by-case basis and provide requests to the teams to stay within the acceptable limits.

 

Exhaust blowing is thought to be far less influential than it was during 2011-2013 when Red Bull found the advantage and was a major factor in their dominance.

 

In the 2.4L normally aspirated V8 era, the exhaust blew directly into the diffuser rather than the rear wing, which was far more effective. The V8 engine also revved a lot higher than it’s V6 turbocharged hybrid counterpart and pumped out more gases. The drivers were at one point were even told to downshift earlier than normal to aid exhaust blowing as the higher revs helped make a much more faster flow and to hit the throttle as early as possible into the corners.

 

The waiting game continues to see which team falls to the FIA’s clampdown.

 

Button’s going to Le Mans!

 

2009 World Champion Jenson Button has signed to race in the 2018-19 FIA World Endurance Championship super season with SMP Racing.

 

The Briton will be racing in the LMP1 category at Le Mans, competing alongside former McLaren team-mate Fernando Alonso who will be driving for Toyota in the World Endurance Championship this year.

 

Button joins former F1 driver Vitaly Petrov and IndyCar driver Mikhail Aleshin and is confident that the Russian squad is within a chance of winning the prestigious 24 Hours of Le Mans.

 

Alonso “Car was comfortable to drive today”

 

 

 

McLaren’s Fernando Alonso says his MCL33 racer felt a lot more comfortable to drive on the 6.003km Baku City Circuit.

 

The Spaniard was sixth quickest in the second practice session posting a 1:43.700 on the ultras and was seventh fastest in the opening session.

 

“Today, we had a car that performed well in all three sectors, each of which is fairly unique,” explained Alonso. “This weekend’s updates were introduced in order to help deal with the circuit’s characteristics, and seem to be working as we expected. It feels like we’ve found a little bit of speed compared to the last few races, so I’m fairly happy, as we weren’t compromised in either the corners or the slow speed sector.”

 

“I was also a little lucky on my fast lap, running behind Nico [Hulkenberg] as he began his quick-lap, so I gained a couple of tenths in the final sector.”

 

“It’s going to be as tough as ever to make it into Q3 tomorrow, but this is actually one of those races where you don’t really know if starting ninth or 10th is actually better than starting 11th or 12th, and getting a free choice of fresh tyre.” Alonso concluded.