1 week ago
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Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc edged Red Bull’s Sergio Perez by conscionable 0.006 seconds successful Friday signifier astatine the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
Leclerc’s clip was acceptable precocious successful the session, erstwhile the way would person been quicker than for immoderate of his rivals, aft a hard time that included a clang successful the archetypal session.
Mercedes operator Lewis Hamilton was 3rd fastest, 0.066secs down Perez, up of Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz, McLaren’s Oscar Piastri and Red Bull’s Max Verstappen.
McLaren’s Lando Norris, Verstappen’s closest challenger successful the championship, was 14th fastest aft being held up by Pierre Gasly’s Alpine connected what would person been his fastest lap.
Leclerc came into the play arguably arsenic favourite for rod position, having qualified astatine the beforehand 3 years successful a enactment successful Baku.
But helium crashed his Ferrari halfway done the archetypal session, and portion it was acceptable successful clip for the commencement of the 2nd hour, Leclerc was rapidly complaining that thing was wrong.
Ferrari told him they could spot thing connected their telemetry data, but helium said the car felt “not straight” and helium needed to travel successful to the pits, saying: "It's intolerable you cannot spot that connected the data."
That enactment him retired of sync with the different drivers and meant helium did his qualifying simulation tally connected the brushed tyre aboriginal than his rivals, which successful mentation is an advantage.
Red Bull look overmuch much competitory than they did successful Monza 2 weeks ago, but Verstappen, aft mounting the gait successful the archetypal session, did not person specified a blessed clip successful the second.
He complained astir understeer - a deficiency of beforehand grip - arsenic helium has done astatine galore caller races, and had some a near-miss with the partition aft misjudging Turn Five and past a travel up the flight roadworthy astatine Turn Three.
The Dutchman, 62 points up of Norris with 8 races remaining, ended up 0.545secs disconnected the pace.
Norris appeared acceptable for a clip that could person challenged Perez astatine the apical until helium was blocked by Gasly coming done the flat-out kinks connected the pit consecutive and had to backmost off.
On contention pace, the McLaren, successful Piastri’s hands, appeared to person a flimsy borderline connected Perez’s Red Bull.
George Russell was different to person a hard session. He was precocious retired aft Mercedes discovered an motor occupation and past was called successful earlier the extremity with different unspecified issue. He ended up ninth fastest.
Oliver Bearman, lasting successful for the suspended Kevin Magnussen astatine Haas, was 10th fastest, 2 places and 0.072secs down team-mate Nico Hulkenberg.
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