Mercedes downplays early-weekend dominance at Azerbaijan GP

Mercedes doesn’t believe its huge 0.8s advantage over the F1 field at Baku is representative because of differing run plans between the frontrunning drivers.

George Russell dominated the second practice session, with his best time of 1m 43.347s eclipsing Max Verstappen, the quickest non-Mercedes driver, by 0.827s. The closest Ferrari was 1.126s off the pace, while the fastest McLaren was 1.484s adrift.

Russell was in strong form personally, beating teammate Andrea Kimi Antonelli by 0.552s.

Mercedes was tipped as the team to beat at the drag- and power-sensitive Baku street track given those characteristics have typically suited its car-engine package this year. But deputy team principal Bradley Lord warned against assuming the margin was accurate after the first day of practice.

“I don’t think it’s a representative gap, honestly,” he said. “We ran more timed laps on the soft tire in FP2. Max had only one go. So did the McLarens.

“Probably don’t read too much into it, because every time you did [a lap], the lap times were improving. We did one more than everyone else and therefore probably found a bit more in the track and a bit more in the tire than they were able to.”

Russell was the only frontrunning driver to set more than one lap on softs, but even his slower soft-shod lap would have been good enough for him to finish at the top of the pile with a 0.415s advantage over Verstappen, though the gap between him and Antonelli would have shrunk to just 0.14s.

“This is one [circuit] where traditionally he’s had some really strong results,” Lord said. “I think he’s just getting dialed into the circuit and is able to judge exactly where the limit is. Hopefully he can continue doing that through the rest of the weekend.”

Antonelli’s day was less smooth, with a hydraulics problem taking him out of FP1 with just nine laps completed and an ensuing engine change preventing him from joining FP2 until around the halfway point, after which he completed only 16 laps – a total of 25 laps to Russell’s 48.

“Never ideal,” said the title leader. “But overall with the laps I did, I felt quite okay in the car – but of course lots of work to do ahead of tomorrow.”

Fortunately for Antonelli, who took a back-of-grid engine penalty just two rounds ago in Italy, the engine swapped out of his car after FP1 is not believed to have been damaged, meaning he’s unlikely to require further penalties this season.