Valtteri Bottas finished fastest in the opening Formula 1 practice session ahead of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, edging out Daniel Ricciardo in a mixed morning for Red Bull.
Mercedes was the first team to post times in the session, aiming to take advantage of quiet track conditions. Bottas and team-mate Lewis Hamilton exchanged timesheet topping laps early on before Red Bull joined the battle.
Ricciardo briefly held the fastest time before being eclipsed by Bottas. The Finn’s 1m44.242s was unbeaten for the remainder of the session.
Ricciardo did, however, edge closer to this benchmark. He posted a time 0.035s slower on his third timed lap on a set of supersoft tyres. Bottas’s best was set on the theoretically faster ultrasoft.
Ricciardo’s team-mate Max Verstappen suffered a curtailed session after he spun into the wall at Turn 5, having lost control on the entry to the corner. While the incident occurred just 40 minutes into the session, Verstappen still finished sixth on the timesheet.
Force India finished in the top 10 of a practice timesheet for the first time this season, with Sergio Perez ending the session third fastest. Esteban Ocon was less than two tenths behind in fifth, with both drivers recording their personal bests on the supersoft rubber.
Lewis Hamilton ended the morning in fourth place. He suffered a brief excursion at Turn 2 after slipping into the run-off area on cold tyres.
Fernando Alonso was seventh for McLaren. Sergey Sirotkin and Pierre Gasly finished eighth and ninth respectively. Sirotkin briefly stopped on track at Turn 3 late in the session but managed to restart and return to the pits.
Ferrari focused on long run evaluations in the morning and therefore did not feature at the top of the times. Sebastian Vettel finished 10th, while team-mate Kimi Raikkonen was 15th – his session ended prematurely with a suspected power unit fault.
Renault endured a similarly truncated morning after both Carlos Sainz Jr and Nico Hulkenberg suffered lock-ups on their supersoft tyres in the final 40 minutes.
With only one set of tyres allocated for the second half of the session, both drivers were unable to return to the track after their respective dramas. Hulkenberg finished 13th and Sainz propped up the timesheet as a result.
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