Charles Leclerc was fastest in free practice for Ferrari, topping the times in the FP2 session on the P Zero Red soft. Red Bull's Sergio Perez was quickest in FP1 on the same compound.

The cars were affected by gusting winds that also changed direction, altering the aerodynamic balance. Temperatures were around 25 degrees ambient and 34 degrees on track during FP2.

The challenge in Baku, with its long straights and tight corners, normally lies in balancing the tyre temperatures at the front and the back. In today's conditions, with the 2022 18-inch tyres, there were no such issues - with all the drivers achieving a consistent tyre warm-up and experiencing no graining.

At the moment, there's an estimated performance gap of around 0.6 seconds between the P Zero White hard and P Zero Yellow medium, as well as between the medium and the soft. However, the high degree of track evolution makes it hard to get an accurate picture: Leclerc's benchmark FP2 time was more than two seconds quicker than Perez's top FP1 time.

Scuderia Ferrari set the fastest time overall by the end of the first day of free practice for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, courtesy of Charles Leclerc.

As for Carlos Sainz, his Soft tyre run was spoilt by traffic and yellow flags and so he was unable to improve on the time he set earlier on Medium tyres. As usual at a street track, one of the aims of the day was for the drivers to get into a rhythm with the track and its limits, these being the walls and this task was duly accomplished.

Between them, Charles and Carlos completed 92 laps, 43 in the morning and 49 in the afternoon, while evaluating all the available tyre compounds. They also worked on fine tuning the set up for this track, which apart from its 90 degree corners, also features very slow sections, such as turn 8 and very fast sectors, especially the final 2.2 kilometre final straight. Over the course of the two sessions, the track condition evolved considerably as the cars cleaned up the surface.

In the first hour, Charles and Carlos started out on Hard tyres, with which the Monegasque did a 1'46"999, while the Spaniard managed a 1'48"116. At the midway point, they switched to Softs on which they set their best times of the session, Leclerc stopping the clocks in 1'45"603 and Carlos getting down to 1'46"012. Charles completed 21 laps and Carlos did 22.

Both drivers ran the new rear wing from the start of the session, while continuing to evaluate the available tyre compounds, from the C3 to the C5. On the Mediums tyres, Charles managed a 1'43"806, while Carlos stopped the clocks in 1'45"118, before getting down to 1'44"274. In the second part of the hour, both F1-75s went out on Softs, with Leclerc ending up with a lap in 1'43"224, fastest overall. Sainz encountered traffic and yellow flags and could not improve on his time set on the Mediums and thus stayed fifth on the time sheet. Towards the end, Charles and Carlos ran with heavier fuel loads with Soft and Medium tyres respectively, so as to acquire as much data as possible: 24 laps for the Monegasque, 25 for the Spaniard.

Lewis Hamilton took P6 and George Russell P8 in FP1 with the car experiencing a poor ride and the car bottoming on the straights which cost lap time. Both drivers struggled for grip in the cooler second practice session of the day, with George finishing P7 and Lewis in P12. The team experimented with setup items across both cars for a useful comparison and the factory will be busy overnight to arrive at FP3 in better shape.

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FP2
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Pos	Driver		Team		Time		Gap

1	Leclerc		Ferrari		1:43.224	130.093 mph
2	Perez		Red Bull	1:43.472	0.248
3	Verstappen	Red Bull	1:43.580	0.356
4	Alonso		Alpine		1:44.142	0.918
5	Sainz		Ferrari		1:44.274	1.050
6	Gasly		AlphaTauri	1:44.315	1.091
7	Russell		Mercedes	1:44.548	1.324
8	Tsunoda		AlphaTauri	1:44.567	1.343
9	Ocon		Alpine		1:44.609	1.385
10	Norris		McLaren		1:44.771	1.547
11	Vettel		Aston Martin	1:44.781	1.557
12	Hamilton	Mercedes	1:44.874	1.650
13	Stroll		Aston Martin	1:44.874	1.650
14	Ricciardo	McLaren		1:45.059	1.835
15	Bottas		Alfa Romeo	1:45.115	1.891
16	Zhou		Alfa Romeo	1:45.264	2.040
17	Magnussen	Haas		1:45.588	2.364
18	Albon		Williams	1:46.397	3.173
19	Schumacher	Haas		1:46.425	3.201
20	Latifi		Williams	1:47.218	3.994




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FP1
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Pos	Driver		Team		Time		Gap

1	Perez		Red Bull	1:45.476	127.315 mph
2	Leclerc		Ferrari		1:45.603	0.127
3	Verstappen	Red Bull	1:45.810	0.334
4	Sainz		Ferrari		1:46.012	0.536
5	Alonso		Alpine		1:46.571	1.095
6	Hamilton	Mercedes	1:46.667	1.191
7	Tsunoda		AlphaTauri	1:46.696	1.220
8	Russell		Mercedes	1:46.705	1.229
9	Gasly		AlphaTauri	1:46.830	1.354
10	Ocon		Alpine		1:46.917	1.441
11	Norris		McLaren		1:47.691	2.215
12	Stroll		Aston Martin	1:47.847	2.371
13	Magnussen	Haas		1:47.946	2.470
14	Vettel		Aston Martin	1:47.970	2.494
15	Bottas		Alfa Romeo	1:48.078	2.602
16	Zhou		Alfa Romeo	1:48.222	2.746
17	Albon		Williams	1:48.419	2.943
18	Ricciardo	McLaren		1:48.810	3.334
19	Latifi		Williams	1:50.921	5.445
20	Schumacher	Haas		1:58.332	12.856