Leclerc rebounds to lead second Baku GP practice

Charles Leclerc bounced back from his FP1 crash to top the timesheet in second practice at the end of an eventful Friday at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.

Leclerc wrecked his Ferrari less than halfway through the first hour of practice, and though his car was repaired and ready to go in time for the start of FP2, the Monegasque reported steering problems as soon as he took to the track.

At first Leclerc asked if any problem was visible in the data, but after four laps he was convinced that the car was undrivable, returning to pit lane in frustration. It took him until the final 25 minutes to rejoin the session, now lacking significant mileage, and switched to the soft tire in the last quarter-hour for his first performance run of the day.

With the dusty track in an improved condition relative to when most of the rest of the field completed their qualifying simulations, Leclerc rocketed straight to top spot with a fastest time of 1m43.484s. It was enough to eclipse erstwhile leader Sergio Perez, the reigning Baku winner, by 0.006s.

The closely matched Leclerc and Perez were joined by Lewis Hamilton, who put Mercedes within 0.066s of top spot, making it three teams within less than 0.1s at the end of the first day of running.

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Carlos Sainz was fourth, but the Spaniard was 0.466s slower than his session-topping teammate, while Oscar Piastri’s best-placed representative in fifth and 0.499s off the pace.

Max Verstappen completed the top six as the last of the front-runners with representative laps, the Dutchman 0.545s slower than Leclerc after complaining of poor visibility in sunset conditions.

Neither Lando Norris nor George Russell figured among the leaders. Norris had looked set for a competitive time but was dangerously balked by Pierre Gasly through the flat-out Turn 18-19 kink in the final sector, the Frenchman slowing suddenly and forcing Norris to check up. Team radio suggested Gasly was suffering a battery issue at the time, though he remained on track to complete another lap, while Norris ended the session 17th without a representative time.

Russell, meanwhile, ended the day with only 16 laps under his belt after the first half-hour of the session to a precautionary power unit change and the last few minutes to a technical problem requiring the car to be withdrawn.

The Briton was ninth, sandwiched between Lance Stroll and Nico Hulkenberg in seventh and eighth respectively while Oliver Bearman -- looking comfortable in his first-ever FP2 session -- completing the top 10 for Haas.

Yuki Tsunoda was 11th for RB ahead of Fernando Alonso and Williams teammates Alex Albon and Franco Colapinto, the latter having lost the first quarter-hour of the session to repairs following his heavy FP1 crash. The Argentine rookie came perilously close to forcing his mechanics back to the tools with another heavy hit against the barriers, this time at Turn 8 at the bottom of the climb alongside the castle, but he was able to complete the session.

Valtteri Bottas was 15th ahead of Daniel Ricciardo, the out-of-position Norris, Alpine teammates Gasly and Esteban Ocon -- the latter having completed a power unit change after missing almost all FP1 with an MGU-H problem -- and Zhou Guanyu at the bottom of the order.