What we learned from Friday practice at the 2024 Azerbaijan GP

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