Red Bull drivers Max Verstappen and Daniel Ricciardo topped the first free practice session for the Azerbaijan Grand prix. The Dutch overtook his teammate with 0.470 seconds. Third was Sebastian Vettel (Ferrari) – just over half a second behind Verstappen.
At the beginning of the session, the air temperature was 27 degrees, the track – 52, there was a slight breeze. Pirelli provided for this weekend a medium, soft and supersoft tire.
McLaren has prepared for a heavy weekend, as Fernando Alonso pointed out. The Spanish driver and his teammate, Stoffel Vandoorne, will receive penalties for replacing components in their cars’ power units, respectively 15 and 30 positions on the grid.
Carlos Sainz first came out on the track when the session started. The first time appeared on the table 13 minutes after that – Romain Grosjean recorded 1:52.952 min. The driver of Haas had problems in his lap, blocking the wheels on the seventh turn. There was a lot of slipping and spinning during FP1 as grip was not very good. Teams expect it would get better during the second session.
Gradually there appeared more times in the standings table. The teams used mostly soft and supersoft compounds, although Red Bull had mediums on its cars for a substantial part of the tests.
Red Bull drivers Max Verstappen and Daniel Ricciardo topped the first free practice session for the Azerbaijan Grand prix
Ferrari preferred soft for most of FP1, while Mercedes tried both that and the softest compound. The best times of the Red Bull drivers were with supersofts.
20 minutes before the chequered flag Force India’s Sergio Perez crashed in turn 8-9. He caught the kerb and ran off into the barriers. The rear right tire was torn off the car, the front right was badly damaged. The Race Control stopped the session, while Perez called on his team’s radio that he was fine.
It took the marshals almost 15 minutes to move the broken car to a safe place. Race control announced that it resumed the session at 14:24 local time, which meant there were only six minutes from the scheduled time. During that time there were no changes in the order.
RED FLAG ?
PER hits the wall at the narrow section at Turn 8 and the session is halted while the track is cleared#AzerbaijanGP #F1Baku ?? pic.twitter.com/gMJiWcZBLR
— Formula 1 (@F1) June 23, 2017
PROVISIONAL CLASSIFICATION (END OF FP1)
Confirmation of a successful opening session for @redbullracing at the #AzerbaijanGP ?? pic.twitter.com/H1M84z2Ho1
— Formula 1 (@F1) June 23, 2017
