Friday Report - Leclerc bounces back

Charles Leclerc
© Ferrari

Charles Leclerc bounced back in style following his heavy crash in FP1 in Baku, the Ferrari driver setting the quickest time in the second session, with a late effort that beat Sérgio Pérez’s best by just 0.006s.

The session was far from easy for the Monegasque driver, who complained about a balance issue with his car early on, starting from the feeling on the steering to instability under braking and as the team found no issue on the data, he stopped for checks, losing a good 20 minutes of running.

Once the changes were made Leclerc went out and set what was the best time of the session for Medium tyres before beating everyone with a late qualifying simulation.

With Sainz in P5, but a solid half a second slower than his team mate, Ferrari looks as competitive as in Monza and that’s good news for the Italian team, even if both drivers took to the run-off areas on a number of occasions. And Sainz is being investigated for blatantly impeding Pérez in Turn 13, a very quick corner, at the start of the long runs, so a reprimand looks set to be on his way to the Spaniard driver.

Red Bull put its two drivers on different programs, Pérez focusing more in performance runs that helped him get to P2, the Mexican likely running with a higher engine mode than his team mate.

Verstappen, who had been happy with the balance of his RB20 in FP1 complained of understeer “precisely at the apex of the corners”, also had a couple of trips to the run off areas and looked like he was running a more conservative engine mode than Pérez, as he was losing half a second in the last sector, which is, essential, Turn 16 and a very long flat out run to the line. That’s why the Dutchman was only 6th quickest, 0.545s behind his team mate.

Once again Lewis Hamilton was extremely quick the whole session. Mercedes opted to discard one set of Hard tyres on both cars, but even with the C3 tyre the British driver was running close to the front of the field. On the Soft tyre, the seven times World Champion got within 0.066s of Leclerc’s time, without getting a tow in the main straight.

So the W15 looks far more competitive this weekend than either in Zandvoort or Monza.

Russell, on the other hand, had a tough session, starting it late as the team decided a precautionary PU change was required after checking the car after FP1. That cut 30 minutes of running for the Brit, who rushed through his program but was called into the pits with three minutes to go due to another unspecified mechanical issue with his car.

McLaren’s pace around Baku is still hard to read. Piastri went very early into the qualifying simulation and did just one run, while most of his rivals did two, before switching to the long runs. The Australian was 5th quickest, half a second away from Leclerc, but looked comfortable with his car after an early set-up change.

Norris, who was on his way to beat his team mate’s time by 0.4s, got caught out when Gasly, in front of him, suddenly slowed down in the final kink before the main straight and had to abort his lap, then swapping to the long runs.

That’s why he was only 17th fastest in the session but showed the pace to be on the same tenth of a second as the quickest three drivers of the session. Gasly apologised saying “I’ve got a problem with the battery, I’m sorry”, as Alpine’s tough weekend continued, with the two drivers beating only Zhou and being massively off the pace.

Lance Stroll bounced back from a bad FP1 and was 7th quickest, but his speed on the straights indicated he was running a high engine mode on his Mercedes. Aston Martin’s real pace is more likely to be what Alonso showed, the veteran being only 12th quickest and having a top speed similar to his rivals’.

Haas managed to place both its drivers inside the top ten, with Hulkenberg in P8 and Oliver Bearman doing a sterling job on his debut with the team and finishing the session in 10th place, just 0.072s behind the veteran German.

Yuki Tsunoda was less than 0.1s behind and much happier with his car than in FP1, with both Williams drivers and Bottas also in close proximity, so there will be very little to determine if one of this group is out in Q1 or makes it all the way to Q3 in qualifying.