Verstappen tops closely fought second practice

By on
F1 Grand Prix, GP Azerbaijan, Baku Street Circuitaz

The margins were extremely close among the three top teams in today's second practice session at Baku, Azerbaijan. Max Verstappen was fastest overall, but only by a tenth over Mercedes driver Valtteri Bottas and the second Red Bull of Daniel Ricciardo.

As in the first practice session, grip levels remained low, despite F2 having run on the circuit today as well. This resulted in many off-track excursions yet again, resulting in numerous yellow flags during the session. Renault driver Jolyon Palmer caused a 9-minute red flag period as well as he had a crash similar to Perez' crash during FP1.

Having cut over the curbs a little too hard, he ended up hitting the wall with his right hand side front wheel, followed by the rest of the car scraping against the wall on the right hand side of the track.

At the very end of the session, Max Verstappen also damaged his car as he went backwards into the barriers at Turn 1.

Results

Pos.No.DriverCarTimeGapLaps
133Max VerstappenRed Bull Racing Tag Heuer1:43.362-36
277Valtteri BottasMercedes1:43.462+0.100s32
33Daniel RicciardoRed Bull Racing Tag Heuer1:43.473+0.111s34
47Kimi RäikkönenFerrari1:43.489+0.127s35
55Sebastian VettelFerrari1:43.615+0.253s35
618Lance StrollWilliams Mercedes1:44.113+0.751s27
711Sergio PerezForce India Mercedes1:44.306+0.944s34
826Daniil KvyatToro Rosso1:44.321+0.959s27
931Esteban OconForce India Mercedes1:44.484+1.122s37
1044Lewis HamiltonMercedes1:44.525+1.163s23
1119Felipe MassaWilliams Mercedes1:44.609+1.247s33
1214Fernando AlonsoMcLaren Honda1:45.515+2.153s15
1355Carlos SainzToro Rosso1:45.733+2.371s34
1420Kevin MagnussenHaas Ferrari1:45.831+2.469s33
1527Nico HulkenbergRenault1:46.003+2.641s29
1630Jolyon PalmerRenault1:46.061+2.699s17
172Stoffel VandoorneMcLaren Honda1:46.174+2.812s28
1894Pascal WehrleinSauber Ferrari1:47.150+3.788s25
199Marcus EricssonSauber Ferrari1:47.347+3.985s25
208Romain GrosjeanHaas Ferrari1:47.722+4.360s22