Strong start for Red Bull as Leclerc crashes in first Baku practice

Max Verstappen led Lewis Hamilton and Sergio Perez in the opening practice session at Formula 1's Azerbaijan Grand Prix, as Charles Leclerc caused one of three red-flag interruptions.

Key moments:

• Verstappen three tenths clear
• Crashes for Leclerc and Colapinto
• Ocon sidelined by engine issue

That crash for Leclerc, in which he “took the dirt on the outside” of Turn 15 and understeered into the wall, meant we didn’t see what had been (up to that point) Ferrari’s fastest driver deliver a lap on the soft tyres.

Those red flag periods, plus the way the Baku City street circuit improves so rapidly as the F1 cars begin running on it, means it’s even more difficult than usual to get much of a read on a relative form at this early stage.

But we can still get a glimpse, and it does seem the Red Bull is in a happier place here than it was last time out at Monza. As Sky Sports F1’s Karun Chandhok pointed out, Baku is all slow-speed, 90-degree short corners, where the Red Bull, minor floor tweaks or not, is much more comfortable.

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Red Bull chief engineer Paul Monaghan flat out refused to say beforehand whether both cars are running the revised floor tunnel geometry from FP1, though enough parts are available for this to be so, but either way it will be encouraging for the team to see both cars up there straight away.

The medium/high-speed and longer corners, such as Monza’s Lesmos and the Parabolica, have been its recent weakness, and it was noticeable that Verstappen was not complaining of poor balance in FP1 in Baku, except on corner exits - which Red Bull told him would improve anyway as the track grip naturally came up.

Mercedes' solid start, meanwhile, came against the backdrop of it reverting to an older floor specification for the weekend.

Ferrari is expected to be formidable here because of Leclerc’s historically strong form here and the fact Ferrari tends to go well on circuits without long, combined corners - regardless of the new floor it brought to Monza to help cure the bouncing problems that have blighted the car through long, high-speed corners since June's Spanish GP.

Before Leclerc's crash, he set the pace on the medium (C4) tyre - either side of a brief red flag interruption for a small piece of metal debris on the circuit.

Medium tyre (C4) order

1. Leclerc 1m46.608s
2. Verstappen 1m46.638s
3. Sainz 1m47.204s
4. Norris 1m47.246s
5. Russell 1m47.480s
6. Hamilton 1m47.618s
7. Tsunoda 1m47.716
8. Ricciardo 1m47.739s
9. Piastri 1m48.230s
10. Hulkenberg 1m48.319s
11. Bearman 1m48.511s
12. Colapinto 1m48.602s
13. Gasly 1m48.712s (out of sync)
14. Albon 1m48.931s
15. Alonso 1m49.068s
16. Perez 1m49.077s
17. Bottas 1m49.378s
18. Stroll 1m50.025s
19. Zhou 1m50.496s

Team-mate Carlos Sainz looked to be building up speed a little more slowly. His pace on the soft (C5) tyre was decent, but still some six tenths off the pace. It's feasible Leclerc would have been faster had he not crashed before getting to run the soft.

But it’s also the case the pace-setting times from Verstappen, Hamilton and Perez all came right at the very end and so they took the full benefit of track conditions improving in a way the McLarens didn't.

Soft tyre (C5) order

1. Verstappen 1m45.546s
2. Hamilton 1m45.859s
3. Perez 1m45.922s
4. Norris 1m46.027s
5. Sainz 1m46.173s
6. Piastri 1m46.282s
7. Alonso 1m46.452s
8. Russell 1m46.516s
9. Ricciardo 1m46.687s
10. Bearman 1m46.973s
11. Hulkenberg 1m47.135s
12. Stroll 1m47.184s
13. Bottas 1m47.640s
14. Tsunoda 1m47.708s
15. Colapinto 1m47.901s
16. Albon 1m47.955s
17. Zhou 1m49.052s

Fernando Alonso took a similar benefit in the Aston Martin, so he is perhaps artificially high up the ranking at this stage. Team-mate Lance Stroll was unhappy from the earliest laps, feeling like perhaps “something is broken in the car” so bad was the understeer he was experiencing.

Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri had both used the soft tyre before Franco Colapinto’s Williams slapped the Turn 4 wall and brought out the third of those red flags.

When running resumed, both McLarens - Piastri’s running a larger rear wing than Norris’s - did higher-fuel running on the medium tyre, so they dropped down the order slightly as the Red Bulls, Hamilton and Sainz’s Ferrari completed comparatively late runs on the soft tyre.

Haas will be very happy with this start for Ollie Bearman, subbing for the banned Kevin Magnussen for this race only.

The other thing to say in the midfield battle is that the RB - at least in Daniel Ricciardo’s hands - looks to have started off strongly, again probably helped by this circuit’s low-speed corner profile and long straights playing to the car’s inherent downforce/drag profile.

Yuki Tsunoda was less happy, complaining that his car was “bouncing like hell” on the soft tyre. Perhaps encouragingly for RB, Tsunoda was running on the team's older floor in FP1, and will take over the new one from Ricciardo in FP2.

Esteban Ocon suffered a "power unit issue" on his Alpine early in this session, while team-mate Pierre Gasly didn't run the soft tyre, and set his best time on mediums out of sync with the rest, so we have no idea yet where that team stacks up in the midfield order.