Hamilton reveals how he achieved a breakthrough with his Ferrari on practice day at Baku

Having completed his best Friday with Ferrari so far in 2025, seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton was left to praise the Scuderia for its patience in the opening half of the season, while he also revealed that confidence under braking contributed to his improved form at Baku.

Having clipped the wall in the opening practice session at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton looked to display an impressive performance in the second one-hour session. The Briton ran the mediums in the opening stages of the session, and ended second quickest after the first runs.

Although the seven-time world champion looked to struggle a bit when he switched to the red-walled C6 compound, he got his act together on his third flying lap on the softest compound, posting a time of 1m 41.293s to end up quickest on Friday.

His team-mate Charles Leclerc led the way after the first half an hour of running at Baku, and took second behind his team-mate after everyone completed the qualifying simulation runs.

The Monegasque ran a less-loaded rear wing configuration compared to Hamilton, and endured a few moments across the session, with the rear end of his SF-25 having been quite loose due to the low-downforce rear wing.

Reflecting on his performance on the opening day at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, Hamilton was left to praise the brakes on his Ferrari SF-25 - an area in which he has struggled since the start of the season.

“It wasn’t so positive [early on]… I would say [Free Practice 1] was a bit of a mess. This is a circuit where you have to have mega confidence on the brakes, and I had some problems with the brakes. Also, every track I’m going to is the first time driving the Ferrari at that circuit, so acclimatising to that is not easy.

“We made some changes going into [FP2] and the brakes finally were working perfectly. I was able to really make some big advantages in terms of gaining on the brakes."

The seven-time world champion was cautious when he pondered about his expectations for the rest of the weekend, but he continued slightly more cautiously: “I’m really happy to see the progress and it just goes to show the direction we’ve been going as a team. I’m really, really grateful for everyone’s patience and everyone pushing so hard, because we’re really starting to see the progress come through.”

“I just want to say that I really am grateful for everyone continuing to push, the support I’ve been getting back from everyone at the factory, everyone here, their patience, their support, every weekend just lifting me up... the guys in the garage, all of our marketing team – they’re really making a big difference.

“Then the Tifosi, we’ve been beaming from the energy from the Tifosi in the last race [at Monza] – I’m hoping to take that energy that they gave us all the way through the rest of the season.”