Red was the dominant colour on this the first day of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, courtesy of the Ferrari duo of Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc who were clearly the fastest men on track: 1’41”293 for the seven-time world champion in FP2, which is already under last year’s pole time of 1’41”365, that was set by the Monegasque, who today was just two thousandths shy of that time.
Third quickest driver on Friday was George Russell, who posted a 1’41”770, just nine thousandths quicker than his Mercedes team-mate, Andrea Kimi Antonelli.
THE DAY ON TRACK
Red was also the colour of the tyre that did the most work today, the C6 completing 566 laps (77.11%). In fact, in FP1 the Soft was the only tyre used, something that has never happened in the first practice session from 2019 up until now. This early Friday use of so many sets of Softs is a clear indication that teams are keen to also have Mediums available for qualifying.
There was a bit more variety in the second hour. Eight drivers – Piastri, Norris, Leclerc, Verstappen, Antonelli, Russell, Alonso and Stroll- again only ran the Soft, while eleven used the C5 as well as the C6. The only odd-one-out was Alex Albon who went with a set of Hards on his Williams as well as the Softs.
SIMONE BERRA – PIRELLI CHIEF ENGINEER
“A rather different Friday to usual, which suggests we are in for quite an unusual weekend, at least in terms of tyre usage. We brought the softest trio in the range here, with the C6 returning after being previously used in Imola, Monaco and Montreal. This compound behaved as expected, namely able to deliver a slightly higher grip level than the C5, but within a narrower window of exploitation. Furthermore, as we have seen in the past, feedback some drivers passed on to our engineers suggests that the C5 probably provides more stability in the twistier parts of the track, so that it might be the preferred compound for the key part of qualifying. No coincidence therefore that the C6 did the bulk of the work today.
“Therefore, it will be interesting to see what approach the teams and drivers adopt for qualifying, after making the most of the final hour of free practice tomorrow. Apart from that, it’s worth noting that track conditions are clearly an improvement on past years, a sign of how hard the organisers have worked over the past few days, treating the track surface with high-pressure water jets. This, along with lower temperatures, explains the significantly faster lap times compared to 2024 – they’ve already reached last year’s pole time – and the performance evolution during the sessions while significant, is not as extreme as in the past. Finally, we can report the total absence of graining across all three compounds.”
In a session that was interrupted several times, as is to be expected in Baku, pole position went to the American Jak Crawford (DAMS Lucas Oil) in a time of 1’54”791. He was just 19 thousandths of a second faster than championship leader, Italy’s Leonardo Fornaroli (Invicta Racing). Starting the Feature Race from the second row will be Gabriele Minì (Prema Racing, 1’55”190) and Victor Martins (ART Grand Prix, 1’55”395) while Sebastian Montoya (Prema Racing) was tenth today and so will start tomorrow’s Sprint Race from pole.
For this round, the available compounds are the Soft and Supersoft, as indeed was the case here last year. For the Feature Race, the majority of drivers opted to start on the softer of the two, with just three drivers on Softs when the lights went out. The Supersoft should offer better performance over a 7 to 9 lap stint, so that if there was to be a Safety Car after the sixth lap, which is quite likely on a street circuit, then this would trigger a general rush down pit lane. However, if the race runs smoothly without interruption, the undercut could prove to be very effective. The Soft could suffer a little bit from overheating, but only at a level that would be manageable for the drivers. If conditions are cooler than usual, that could lead to some graining on the front axle, as was the case last year in the Sprint. This would also work in favour of drivers who do the best job of managing the tyres.
