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Formula 1 Azerbaijan GP

Azerbaijan GP Friday practice

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FP2 order: 1 Ricciardo, 2 Raikkonen, 3 Verstappen, 4 Bottas, 5 Hamilton, 6 Alonso, 7 Ocon, 8 Sainz, 9 Magnussen, 10 Hulkenberg, 11 Vettel, 12 Perez, 13 Grosjean, 14 Stroll, 15 Gasly, 16 Leclerc, 17 Sirotkin, 18 Hartley, 19 Vandoorne, 20 Ericsson.
Verstappen gets his poorly-sounding Red Bull back to the pits.
Checkered flag
The chequered flag is out.
Radio Comms
"Keep the engine revs below 10,500," Verstappen is told.
Hmm, now Verstappen is coasting back to the pits. His engine sounds a bit strange.
Verstappen just put in a personal best final sector time there, on supersofts with 11 laps on them already.
Radio Comms
Hulkenberg is told his pace "looks pretty good" but he's given several caveats, including different tyre strategies and traffic, that could be interfering with the data being provided.
Here's the day's pacesetter - winner last time out Mr Ricciardo.

Here's the day's pacesetter - winner last time out Mr Ricciardo.

We're finishing the session with quite a bit of tyre variety, after everybody started their race simulation work on ultrasofts. As those first sets become useless and cars dive into the pits for another set to run with high fuel loads, we're getting a mix of supersofts and softs being chosen for the second runs.
Radio Comms
"What is this Williams doing?!" moans Vandoorne. McLaren tells him it's Sirotkin, who has been slow for a couple of laps.
Hamilton has ditched his ultrasofts for a set of pretty fresh softs.
Sainz has been off at Turn 1, while Raikkonen locked up at Turn 7 and just about made the corner without hitting the wall.
Alonso is Turn 15's next victim. He's on 13-lap-old ultrasofts, while Grosjean - who went off there just before - has 12 laps on his tyres.
Grosjean has been off at Turn 15.
Yellow flag
Sure enough, Perez goes off and rejoins at Turn 3.
Yellow flag
Gasly has been off at Turn 15. Since we switched from qualifying runs to long runs, the number of cars going off had reduced significantly. Now we're into the phase of the session where tyres will be going off, so with grip levels reducing we could see more drama again.
Radio Comms
More rear-tyre feedback at Renault, with Hulkenberg this time reporting "bad graining".
Radio Comms
Sainz is reporting "quite a lot of rear degradation". He's told to make a brake balance adjustment to compensate for it.
Magnussen, Grosjean, and Ericsson (who has a suspected gearbox issue) are the only drivers not on track at the moment. Everyone else is getting on with race simulation work.
Radio Comms
Hulkenberg feels like he is losing his brakes, but Renault tells him there is nothing in the data to suggest there is a problem.

By: Geoff Creighton

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