Valtteri Bottas was fastest in the first Friday free practice for the Azerbaijan Grand prix. The Mercedes driver’s best time was 1:44.242 мин, 0.035sec faster than Daniel Ricciardo (Red Bull). Sergio Perez gave the third best time in the last seconds of the practice.
The top teams had different strategies for the first 90 minutes for preparation ahead of the fourth round of the 2018 Formula 1 World championship. Ferrari had only ultrasoft runs although Kimi Raikkonen had an additional problem – probably with the power unit.
Bottas gave his best time with ultrasoft. But there is not much base for comparison as the race weekend is taking place earlier in the year and that means different conditions.
Valtteri Bottas was fastest in the first Friday free practice for the Azerbaijan Grand prix
Red Bull had a program with the soft tyres. Only Ricciardo managed to work on it as Max Verstappen stopped on the circuit after stalling the car in first gear. The engineers from the pit wall tried to help him restart the car but did not succeed.
There were numerous incidents on the dusty circuit. Fortunately, all of them had no serious consequences.
What have we learned so far? There’s not a lot of grip. But that seems to suit some teams: look at the pace of @ForceIndiaF1 and @WilliamsRacing in #FP1 up to now #AzerbaijanGP
— Pirelli Motorsport (@pirellisport) April 27, 2018
Three Baku podium specialists in the top three in FP1
With @ForceIndiaF1 looking strong ?
And Ferrari perhaps yet to show their hand properly…#F1 #AzerbaijanGP ?? pic.twitter.com/z4gX9fp4Wz
— Formula 1 (@F1) April 27, 2018
