What we learned in Friday practice for the 2025 F1 Azerbaijan GP

There was a sense of certainty that a marshal would need to reach for a red flag at some point during Baku's Friday practice sessions, and it duly arrived within the first 15 minutes of FP1. Carlos Sainz ran over the exit kerb at Turn 16 and appeared to leave a shard of debris behind but, as the marshals inspected the culprit, it turned out to be a piece of rubber-like bonding within the kerb that had sprung free.

Indeed, a marshal yanked at the rubbery mass like a cartoon character attempting to rid a garden of a particularly difficult weed, and the subsequent checks enforced a 25-minute layoff in proceedings. It's not the first time that the circuit infrastructure has caused a red flag during the Baku weekend; Valtteri Bottas hit a drain cover in 2016's FP3 session, and George Russell did likewise in 2019's FP1 and tore up the chassis of his Williams on the run to Turn 3. If one was feeling uncharitable, you could suggest that the FW42 was improved by such widespread damage...

Lando Norris nonetheless demonstrated the early pace in FP1 with three tenths over his team-mate Oscar Piastri, although an unspecified powertrain issue almost counted the Australian out of first practice. Instead, the red flag probably set him back about five minutes versus the rest of the field.

FP2, however, was the Ferrari show as McLaren's drivers made a pig's ear of the later session. Charles Leclerc, a famed Baku specialist (having been apparently bestowed with a great power around Azerbaijan's capital, save for 2019's Turn 8 shunt) was sitting pretty at the top of the timesheets following the final flurry of soft-tyre runs, then played a part in Lewis Hamilton's late ascent to the top in awarding his team-mate a tow along Neftchilar Avenue's booming runway out of Turn 16. McLaren, meanwhile, looked to be magnetically attracted to Baku's ravenous barriers - which rather took the sting out of the two MCL39s' tails.

On the basis of the Friday sessions, sans McLaren - and possibly Red Bull - top line pace, it all seems a bit inconclusive. Regardless, we'll pick the bones out of it and work out where things stand ahead of the weekend's key sessions.

McLaren mess obscures true pace

Norris had been looking good, until he clouted the wall on what proved to be his final lap of the session. Amid the opening runs of the session, the McLaren driver was 0.4s up on Leclerc's then-headline time before backing out - he expected that the chance to demonstrate his actual pace was going to come later.

Norris suffered a premature end to his Friday running after clattering the wall

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But a haphazard approach to Turn 4 rather snuffed out those chances. The MCL39's tail looked eager to wag, and Norris had just about kept it under control on the exit of Turn 2 while on a hot lap, but the pendulum had swung too much through Turns 3 and 4. In the latter right-hander, Norris' rear broke traction and hit the wall, breaking the rear suspension to leave him crabbing his way back to the pits.

It was only a short while later that Piastri knocked the Tecpro barrier with his rear-right wheel at Turn 15, although the more forgiving wall surface ensured that damage was limited to a few scuff marks. After that, Piastri's runs looked tepid at best - as if he was more preoccupied with keeping the car out of the wall through his subsequent long runs.

“[It was] a costly one, especially here,” said Norris. “I was feeling good until then. I'd rather have this and push and find the limits than not push at all. Annoying, and I would have liked to get some high fuel laps in, especially on these tyres, the softer compound compared to last year. But it is what it is and I'll have to make up for it.

That Leclerc was among the fastest times on Friday was of little surprise; we've already extolled his virtues around this circuit. That Hamilton was ahead of him was slightly less expected. Sure, the tow was in force on the seven-time champion's lap, but he was close to Leclerc's pace anyway without it

“Certainly I'm behind on the learnings now, but a scrappy session, I guess, from both my side, I think from Oscar's side, he seemed to be struggling a little bit with the car as well, so we'll see what we can make up for tomorrow.”

One does have a theory, but it could be completely baseless; one of the components behind McLaren's success in 2024 in Baku was in part due to its 'mini-DRS' system, where the upper element opened just a tiny amount to help stall the wing and replicate DRS - and the top-speed benefit helped Piastri to keep Leclerc at bay for victory.

For FP2 this year, McLaren appeared to run with skinnier rear wings to gather pace through the straights, now that the mini-DRS and equivalent devices are outlawed; perhaps it needed just a little more load to help stabilise the car. But that's purely speculation on my part.

Hamilton grabbed the headlines by topping second practice for Ferrari

Maybe the drivers just over-did it, and the balance is ultimately fine. Either way, McLaren has made it difficult for itself tomorrow - because there's not really much of an indicator in where it stands in the pecking order.

Ferrari unlocks single-lap performance, but will it last?

That Leclerc was among the fastest times on Friday was of little surprise; we've already extolled his virtues around this circuit. That Hamilton was ahead of him was slightly less expected. Sure, the tow was in force on the seven-time champion's lap, but he was close to Leclerc's pace anyway without it. It seems that, so far, the Briton is happy with his lot and will be hoping that his line-leading pace carries over into Saturday.

Of course, McLaren is an unknown quantity on single-lap pace because it didn't offer anything representative in FP2 - but nor did Max Verstappen. The Dutchman was set to throw his hat into the ring before going deep at Turn 15, locking a wheel and ending his chance of demonstrating Red Bull's outright speed.

His RB21 has been much more well-behaved of late, as set-up breakthroughs and a new floor update have ensured that the car's narrow performance window has opened up a little bit.

That being said, the fragments of pace seen across the two sessions suggested that Red Bull is a little behind McLaren and Ferrari at this stage - but the team has often found performance overnight to attack Saturdays with more gusto.

Mercedes looked to be in the mix despite Russell's croakiness, following the illness that excluded him from Thursday's media duties. Russell was even primed to put the Ferraris under scrutiny, but a Turn 12 bothering of the wall prompted him to cancel that lap. Qualifying, then, should be very tight and could come down to tyre choice rather than outright pace; the C6s were preferred in FP2's quicker runs, but the C5 medium can be an option here if anyone's feeling brave.

Red Bull also didn't fully show off its pace in practice - as teams opted to burn through the unfancied soft tyres

Photo by: Sam Bagnall / Sutton Images via Getty Images

Short race runs difficult to read

Given that McLaren and Ferrari didn't do particularly representative long runs for differing reasons, it's very difficult to address the Sunday pace through FP2's long-run efforts. What also doesn't help is that many of the other runs were scarcely any longer than four or five laps, and the wider use of the soft tyre may not even carry over into Sunday's race. It depends on how the degradation is, and it's hard to determine that as the stints were so short. Chicken and egg. Maybe FP3 will offer more of a demonstration.

For posterity, we'll include the long-run tables - but the mix of compounds makes it difficult to work with.

FP2 average long-run times (soft and medium)

*Ferrari did not complete a representative long run

The absence of Ferrari in the long-runs is explained by its later exploration with qualifying runs, particularly with the tow for Hamilton. Otherwise, it's a jumbled order in the sense that Piastri did not seem to be driving particularly quickly on his long-run, and Antonelli offered Mercedes' only five-lap-plus run on softs as Russell only strung a chain of four laps together.

It would be surprising if the soft gets used in the race, and the widespread use of the C6 suggests that the teams were more than happy to get rid of a few sets to ensure it had more mediums available for qualifying and the race. This makes it exceedingly difficult to extrapolate beyond what we have. Pirelli chief engineer Simone Resta stated that "the C5 probably provides more stability in the twistier parts of the track, so that it might be the preferred compound for the key part of qualifying. [It is] no coincidence therefore that the C6 did the bulk of the work today" - adding that there were no issues with graining overall.

The only comparison point comes through Alex Albon's brief stint on hard tyres, and his average across a seven-lap stretch works out at 1m46.559s. Since this was not on the soft or medium compounds, we chose not to include it in the above table (and was a shorter stint than Sainz's, in any case) but suggests that the hard should be a strong race tyre. A medium-hard (or vice versa) strategy will be the likely way into the race on Sunday - but the softs could make an appearance if there's a late safety car.

And, if safety cars are prevalent, it'll all be about the response.

The field appears fairly open after the first day of track action in Baku

Photo by: Clive Rose / Getty Images