Mercedes
Running the older spec floor, Hamilton looked confident from the off and spent much of the session on top of the leaderboard, before he was pipped late on by old foe Verstappen. Russell was slightly further back, then missed the start of FP2 thanks to a precautionary PU change. He missed a decent chunk of the second session before being called back to the pits with an issue a few minutes before the chequered flag fell. That was the bad news – the good news was that Hamilton looked equally quick in FP2, signalling that the older floor seems to be delivering the goods right now.
READ MORE: ‘I was struggling’ – Russell insists he needs to ‘step up my game’ after tricky Friday in Baku
Lewis Hamilton – FP1: 1:45.859, P2; FP2: 1:43.550, P3
“Today was a really good day. I enjoyed it from the start as the car felt strong from the first laps on track. We made some positive incremental steps on the set-up. There was nothing we had to come back on, and we continued to build throughout. Pace wise, we didn’t complete a huge number of laps on our long run in FP2. We will have to do some comparisons tonight therefore to see where our relative speed is. Our usual competitors looked strong, but I think we are there or thereabouts. That is encouraging and was our hope coming into this weekend. We will stay cautious and vigilant though. We will work hard tonight to try and find more gains and see what we can do in qualifying tomorrow.”
George Russell – FP1: 1:46.516, P8; FP2: 1:44.536, P9
“Today wasn’t the smoothest Friday we’ve ever had. Unfortunately, we lost a little bit of running time with a precautionary power unit change ahead of FP2. Once we were out on track, I wasn’t completely happy with the balance of the car. I was struggling to get the tyres in the right window and was lacking a little confidence. I’ll work hard overnight to improve on that, step my game up for tomorrow and close the gap. The good news is that Lewis was looking very quick out there. It encourages us that the car is strong, and we can be competitive this weekend. It looks very close between several teams, with Ferrari in particular looking strong. If we can make improvements overnight though we can aim to be in the mix for qualifying and the race on Sunday.”
Andrew Shovlin, Trackside Engineering Director
“Lewis had two decent sessions and finished the day happy with the car. His pace also looked sensible although we know the areas we’ve got to work on. Overall, we’re pleased with how his weekend has started. As has been the case in recent races, it looks very tight at the front in terms of single lap, so we’ll be working hard overnight to find every bit of lap time. In comparison to Lewis, George had a more challenging day. He wasn’t very happy with the balance of the car in FP1, so we spent that session trying to improve it. Shortly after FP1 finished, we spotted an issue with the power unit that led us to take the cautious approach of swapping it out for FP2. That unfortunately cost him 25 minutes of valuable track time and whilst we got to run both tyres, the programme was compromised. We’ll be aiming to recover some of the lost ground with George tomorrow in FP3.”
