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 complete a turnaround from his morning’s indiscretions.

Ferrari on top – but facing a Red Bull revival?

After a dismal Monza weekend, Red Bull spent the week in between “licking its wounds” — per chief engineer Paul Monaghan. The team had brought a new floor to Azerbaijan and, although Monaghan stated that it was a subtle change to the underbody, he hoped that this would help Red Bull chart the right course through the final flyaway rounds.

Many of the team’s issues in recent rounds have stemmed from a series of balance issues, where the car tends to understeer in the low-speed corners and leaves the drivers feeling unsettled on the exit.

Comparing Perez’s lap to that of Leclerc, there still appears to be a problem with the behaviour of the RB20 in the opening sector; per GPS data Perez was losing time in the corners, handing incremental gains Leclerc’s way

While Verstappen struggled with continued understeer in the 90-degree corners and later complained about the low-hanging sun peeking through the city skyline, Perez rather picked up the pace.

Comparing the Mexican’s lap to that of Leclerc, there still appears to be a problem with the behaviour of the RB20 in the opening sector; per GPS data Perez was losing time in the corners, handing incremental gains Leclerc’s way. This stabilised and the lap started to come back to Perez through the Old Town sweepers, putting the two drivers effectively level at Turn 16 – the final ‘proper’ corner over a lap of the Baku circuit. And, although Perez gathered a slightly better slingshot at the start of the 2.2-kilometre (1.37 mile) stretch on Neftchilar Avenue, Leclerc had the better top end and crossed the line with a wafer-thin advantage.

Regardless, it will be a boost to Red Bull amid its recent lapse in form – Verstappen noted that it was a “positive” pair of sessions, a marked change in his mood from recent rounds. If it can preserve that qualifying pace, then both Verstappen and Perez should be able to set themselves up for a strong Sunday run – depending, of course, on long-run pace.

Average FP2 medium long runs

Note: Mercedes only ran hards, Hamilton doing an average 1m48.819s across a five-lap hard-tyre stint

It is advantage Ferrari but little splits it from Red Bull and McLaren on Friday’s medium tyre runs

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images

The long-run times suggest that Ferrari still retains an advantage in the early reckoning for race day, while Red Bull is largely level with McLaren despite the Woking squad’s disappointment with Friday practice. Oscar Piastri appeared to struggle much less compared to Lando Norris as the Briton cited a constant battle against sliding on the lower-grip track surface.

Piastri set a string of 1m48s at the top of his medium-tyre stint, although his average grew as his pace tailed off towards the end of it; Perez was meanwhile more consistent through his representative run on the C4 tyre. Sainz’s times should be taken with a small pinch of salt, however, as two outliers were removed from his stint; these were however considerably slower than his other times, suggesting either cool-down laps or traffic had come into play.

It’s difficult to know where, at this stage, where Mercedes fits in. It will likely attempt to run with the medium tyre in FP3 as it conducted its work on the hard tyres through the second practice session on Friday. Hamilton’s times looked competitive on the C3 hard tyre, as noted above, but the short stint length and differing tyre compound mean that it cannot realistically be compared to the other teams on the medium.

His team-mate George Russell also had his running stymied by a sensor fault, causing a data anomaly that forced the team to curtail his afternoon. This means that the picture is muddied further; suggestions are that Mercedes should be battling Red Bull and McLaren, but only FP3 and qualifying will truly answer that.

Then there’s the question of engine modes, and Verstappen’s comparatively glacial pace in the final sector relative to Perez (a half-second gulf here) suggests that the Dutchman’s engine was turned down while his team-mate had the wick slightly more turned up.

The top four teams have a significant gap over the rest of the order, suggesting that only ninth and 10th are left to play for among them. Of note was the consistency of Oliver Bearman’s laps in his stint, for which he earned praise from engineer Mark Slade on the pitwall, as the teenager’s collection of laps narrowly put him above Hulkenberg across their respective medium-tyre runs.

But Haas was slightly behind Alpine and Williams in the battle for the minor points; Fernando Alonso’s stint paints a bleak picture of Aston Martin’s weekend by comparison, but this does not tell the whole story. Lance Stroll’s peak stint times were more competitive, but not counted for the table due to the inconsistency of that longer run.

As has been the case for the majority of the 2024 F1 season, a new venue has delivered a slightly shaken up pecking order

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images

What they said

Perez: “It was definitely a good, solid day. I think there are some good basics. We made good progress from FP1 to FP2. We just have to make sure that we are able to progress from here. And I think we can definitely be in the mix for tomorrow.”

Hamilton: “It was a really good day. I enjoyed today, I hit the ground running from the get-go and made incremental steps with the set-up and for once felt like we didn’t have steps that we had to come back on, it was consistently building. I don’t know how my long run is compared to others but we didn’t get a huge amount of laps. I think Red Bull seem pretty quick as does the Ferrari but we are there or thereabouts.”

Norris: “We’re quite a long way off. I’m having to push way too much to try and get a lap time out of it clearly. I think where Oscar was is kind of more where we are. So I think if we nail it, we’re just about there, but I’m sure they’re not even close to nailing it yet. So yeah, I think we have quite a lot to find, honestly, comparing to Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull, they’re all very similar, and then there’s a good three, four tenths gap back to us. So, a lot of work for us to do.”

Norris was downbeat following his Friday showing, but can McLaren turn it around overnight?

Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images

Formula 1’s penalty point system «need to be reviewed» in the wake of the incident that triggered Kevin Magnussen’s one-race ban for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix — which other drivers described as «harsh».

Magnussen made contact with Pierre Gasly at the Variante della Roggia during the Italian Grand Prix in a bid to make an overtake, ultimately forcing both to take to the run-off cutting the chicane.

Although Magnussen continued his progress and finished ninth on the road, he was handed a 10-second penalty and the application of two points to his superlicence — relegating him to 10th in the order and triggering his ban for Baku after reaching 12 penalty points.

This came despite Gasly’s earlier assertion that it was «nothing» and the penalty was «unfair» — something that Magnussen’s team-mate Nico Hulkenberg agreed with.

«Obviously, there’s a history of how that happened and he accumulated all those penalty points but if you look just isolated at the Monza incident, I think, that’s racing.

«I mean, it’s pretty straightforward, fair and square racing. I don’t see two penalty points for that, or that 10-second penalty even — that’s very harsh.

«That’s my opinion, but most drivers feel the same way about that. I had a case with Fernando [Alonso] in Austria, in the sprint race, where I kind of tried to make a move in turn three, and locked up and went a bit wide, and he had to go off the track.

Pierre Gasly, Alpine A524, Kevin Magnussen, Haas VF-24

Photo by: Sam Bagnall / Motorsport Images

«But, I mean, that’s racing; to overtake we have to leave the comfort zone and take some risk and then that kind of happens sometimes.

«It seems a bit that the stewards, whenever there’s a little contact, they want to get involved. They want to have a consequence for it, which I think the drivers feel is not really necessary for every contact. Maybe the penalty guidelines need to be reviewed and then changed because we need to be able to race.»

Haas team boss Ayao Komatsu concurred, adding: «I think according to the penalty guideline, the penalty that was given on that particular incident, I can’t really argue. But it’s more a question of if that penalty guideline is correct.»

Yuki Tsunoda reckoned that the 12-point system was too restrictive for a 24-race season, recalling that he was close to a ban in 2022 thanks to a series of infractions in his sophomore campaign.

He felt that for infractions like track limits, the on-track penalty was sufficient to punish a driver — and that the stewards should apply points on a case-by-case basis.

«I was in that situation, I almost got banned two years ago,» Tsunoda said. «If I understood correctly, the penalty points didn’t seem to change from once they introduced the maximum points they can reach.

«It feels like that penalty points should get a little bit more compliant, I guess — it seems still kind of strict for 24 races, but at the same time, they had to do it [ban Magnussen] I guess.

«If the track limits get penalty points, that’s too much then. You get enough penalty in the race in race results.

«I don’t think it’s necessary to put it the penalty points, but collision like now, I guess it’s good to have, but case by case, for sure.

«But also, it seems to look case by case anyway, because some of the cases that they put to the driver one point instead of two, it depends on the situation.»

George Russell agreed that the penalty for the incident in isolation was harsh, but added that perhaps more obvious cases of «erratic» driving needed to be punished more — citing that nobody had been banned for dangerous incidents in 12 years.

He added that this was also about setting a precedent for those on the path to F1, ensuring that younger drivers would not arrive in the championship with bad habits.

«It’s a conversation that’s been had a number of times in previous years, as drivers have sailed close to the wind,» Russell explained.

«No one’s been banned in 12 years, so you could argue, were the penalty points actually harsh enough? You could argue for sure his penalty points from Monza seemed a little bit harsh, but you could also argue some of the other incidents perhaps were not harsh enough.

«So yeah, I think also we need to set a bit of a precedent as well for the junior series. Those guys look up to us in F4, F3, F2 and you shouldn’t be allowed to get away with dangerous or erratic driving and at some point, you do need to be punished for it.»