Bottas tops opening practice in Baku

Bottas
Bottas

Valtteri Bottas put his Mercedes atthe head of the timesheets as a number of drivers had off-track moments on the dirty city circuit in the opening Formula 1 practice session of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix weekend.

Bottas recorded a fastest lap time of 1:44.242 to finish just 0.035 seconds clear of Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo, who impressed with his run to P2 on the harder Supersoft tire.

Lewis Hamilton finished almost one second back of teammate Bottas, taking 4th place, but the rival Ferrari team did not try hard as the track was too slippery.

Sebastian Vettel could only finish 10th, completing 18 laps, while teammate Kimi Raikkonen was limited to just 10 laps due to a suspected rear brake issue that kept him in the garage for much of the session.

There was worse news for Max Verstappen in the second Red Bull, with his session coming to an early end after losing the rear of his car on entry to Turn 5 and hitting the barrier. The Dutchman was still able to finish sixth-fastest.

Results

Pos No. Driver Car Time Behind Laps
1 77 Valtteri Bottas Mercedes 1:44.242 +0.000s 26
2 3 Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull Racing 1:44.277 +0.035s 24
3 11 Sergio Perez Force India Mercedes 1:45.075 +0.833s 26
4 44 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1:45.200 +0.958s 24
5 31 Esteban Ocon Force India Mercedes 1:45.237 +0.995s 29
6 33 Max Verstappen Red Bull Racing 1:45.559 +1.317s 11
7 14 Fernando Alonso McLaren Renault 1:46.465 +2.223s 25
8 35 Sergey Sirotkin Williams Mercedes 1:46.480 +2.238s 28
9 10 Pierre Gasly Toro Rosso Honda 1:46.492 +2.250s 18
10 5 Sebastian Vettel Ferrari 1:46.513 +2.271s 18
11 18 Lance Stroll Williams Mercedes 1:46.590 +2.348s 26
12 28 Brendon Hartley Toro Rosso Honda 1:46.747 +2.505s 32
13 27 Nico Hulkenberg Renault 1:46.749 +2.507s 11
14 8 Romain Grosjean Haas Ferrari 1:46.856 +2.614s 23
15 7 Kimi Raikkoene Ferrari 1:46.861 +2.619s 10
16 16 Charles Leclerc Sauber Ferrari 1:46.875 +2.633s 21
17 9 Marcus Ericsson Sauber Ferrari 1:47.073 +2.831s 21
18 20 Kevin Magnussen Haas Ferrari 1:47.434 +3.192s 18
19 2 Stoffel Vandoorne McLaren Renault 1:47.967 +3.725s 21
20 55 Carlos Sainz Renault 1:48.741 +4.499s 11