Verstappen pips Leclerc in sole Baku practice as fault halts Alpine pair

Max Verstappen put Red Bull just ahead of Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc during the only practice session of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix weekend.

The reigning champion’s best time of a 1’42.315 was less than half a tenth quicker than Leclerc’s, with Sergio Perez third ahead of Carlos Sainz Jnr. Both Alpine drivers were halted after a fire for Pierre Gasly led to an investigation on his team mate’s car with a suspected hydraulic problem the culprit.

With only a single hour of practice, teams rushed out to try and make the most of the highlight limited track time that they had available. Thankfully, the skies over Baku were clear and sunny, giving drivers the best possible conditions in which to take to the circuit for their only practice of the weekend.

The freshly relaid asphalt around the circuit offered little grip as teams ventured out for the first time. George Russell was quick to complain about the slippery surface, while his Mercedes team mate Lewis Hamilton also came on the radio to complain about brake-by-wire troubles on his car.

Carlos Sainz Jnr clipped the inside barrier on the apex of turn five, taking a large chunk out of the painted barrier, but apparently not causing any damage to his Ferrari. However Yuki Tsunoda was not so fortunate when he spun rounding turn three, clipping the wall with his right-rear wheel. The contact tore the tyre from the rim, but Tsunoda managed to slowly recover back to the pits.

Just after 15 minutes into the session, Gasly developed a small fire at the rear of his Alpine, causing smoke to rise from the car. While he tried to recover to the pits, he eventually was told to stop on track at turn 12, bringing out the red flags as his Alpine began smoking with ever greater intensity. At the same time, Kevin Magnussen also came to a stop at the first corner after locking up his Haas under braking and having to bail out of the corner to avoid the barrier.

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After Gasly’s car was extinguished and recovered, Alpine began to strip down Ocon’s car as a precaution due to a suspected hydraulic problem, signalling the end of their session. Practice eventually restarted with over half an hour remaining, with Verstappen on top of the times ahead of Red Bull team mate Perez.

Leclerc briefly brought out the yellow flags after locking up into turn seven and grinding to a halt short of the barriers. After quickly activating reverse gear in his Ferrari, Leclerc managed to pull back out and continue on his way. After returning to the circuit for a later run, Leclerc suffered a similar lock-up, this time at turn two.

In the closing minutes, teams prepared for qualifying simulation runs ahead of the afternoon’s qualifying session. Perez improved on the soft tyres to go quickest of all, two tenths faster than his team mate, while Leclerc also moved second, a tenth of a second faster than the championship leader.

Perez shaved half a tenth off his own best time, before Leclerc beat Perez by a quarter of a second to put his Ferrari fastest. When the chequered flag signalled the end of the session, Verstappen improved on his final lap to pip Leclerc to the fastest time by less than half a tenth of a second. That put the Red Bull fastest to completed the session, ahead of Leclerc, Perez and Sainz in fourth.

Lando Norris was fifth for McLaren, giving them some encouragement following the introduction of their upgrade package. Nyck de Vries took sixth ahead of the two Aston Martins of Lance Stroll and Fernando Alonso. Alexander Albon and Zhou Guanyu rounded out the top ten.

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2023 Azerbaijan Grand Prix first practice result

Position	Number	Driver	Team	Model	Time	Gap	Laps
1	1	Max Verstappen	Red Bull	RB19	1’42.315		22
2	16	Charles Leclerc	Ferrari	SF-23	1’42.352	0.037	21
3	11	Sergio Perez	Red Bull	RB19	1’42.454	0.139	22
4	55	Carlos Sainz Jnr	Ferrari	SF-23	1’42.899	0.584	23
5	4	Lando Norris	McLaren-Mercedes	MCL60	1’43.125	0.810	22
6	21	Nyck de Vries	AlphaTauri-Red Bull	AT04	1’43.414	1.099	24
7	18	Lance Stroll	Aston Martin-Mercedes	AMR23	1’43.455	1.140	23
8	14	Fernando Alonso	Aston Martin-Mercedes	AMR23	1’43.560	1.245	20
9	23	Alexander Albon	Williams-Mercedes	FW45	1’43.628	1.313	25
10	24	Zhou Guanyu	Alfa Romeo-Ferrari	C43	1’43.748	1.433	23
11	44	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	W14	1’43.798	1.483	21
12	81	Oscar Piastri	McLaren-Mercedes	MCL60	1’43.980	1.665	23
13	77	Valtteri Bottas	Alfa Romeo-Ferrari	C43	1’44.010	1.695	23
14	22	Yuki Tsunoda	AlphaTauri-Red Bull	AT04	1’44.137	1.822	18
15	27	Nico Hulkenberg	Haas-Ferrari	VF-23	1’44.323	2.008	21
16	2	Logan Sargeant	Williams-Mercedes	FW45	1’44.900	2.585	16
17	63	George Russell	Mercedes	W14	1’45.082	2.767	20
18	31	Esteban Ocon	Alpine-Renault	A523	1’45.955	3.640	8
19	10	Pierre Gasly	Alpine-Renault	A523	1’46.321	4.006	7
20	20	Kevin Magnussen	Haas-Ferrari	VF-23	1’47.498	5.183	8

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2023 Azerbaijan Grand Prix

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• How slashing practice to a single hour in Baku tripped up F1 teams
• Bottas: “Rapid improvement needed” at Alfa Romeo
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