Red Bull regain their wings as Baku data unearths big surprise package

Sergio Perez in the Red Bull RB20.

Friday practice at the Azerbaijan GP left us with plenty of data to analyse ahead of qualifying and Sunday’s race in Baku.

Charles Leclerc and Ferrari are once again solid, but Red Bull have shown signs of improvement and have a big chance to fight for pole and the win alongside the Italians and McLaren.

Red Bull back in the battle

Charles Leclerc was the fastest on the FP2 timesheet at the Azerbaijan GP. The Ferrari driver, after suffering an accident in FP1 and seeing his run plan damaged by it in Friday’s second session, showed that despite the adversity, the pace of the SF-24 in Baku is really solid.

Despite this solidity, there is another team that wants to fight for victory this weekend, Red Bull, a team which seems to have regained its wings in Azerbaijan.

The performance of Ferrari’s SF-24 and Red Bull’s RB20 was very similar. The big difference was in the driving styles of Sergio Perez and Charles Leclerc with the Monegasque driver being more aggressive on corner entry.

Ferrari was also very efficient on the straights today. As already seen in Monza, the Ferrari engines are performing at a very high level in recent races. On the Baku street circuit, the power unit can make some slight but big differences between the teams.

But the similarities in performance have not only been in one lap. They have also been in the long runs. Carlos Sainz was the driver who completed the best race simulation, closely followed by Sergio Pérez.

Ferrari on top in the FP2 long runs at Baku

Mercedes was the only team of the ‘big 4’ to run on the hard tyre in FP2. Good performance also from the W15, which is the big surprise package. Without making much noise – although we don’t know the fuel loads used – they also seem to be in a good position this weekend. Or at least, a bit better than in Monza.

F1 2024 head-to-head battles

F1 2024: Head-to-head race statistics between team-mates

F1 2024: Head-to-head qualifying record between team-mates

McLaren are saving everything for qualifying… or do they really have problems?

As we can see, Lando Norris was the slowest driver on the straight today. McLaren are saving all their power for tomorrow with a tight qualifying ahead of them.

In addition, Lando was unable to complete his flying lap in FP2 because Pierre Gasly got in his way in the final sector. As a result, the McLaren driver has the worst time in Sector 3.

However, it seems that Ferrari also has a bit more than McLaren in cornering performance. Charles Leclerc was almost five-tenths faster than Oscar Piastri and this big difference was reflected at the end of Sector 1 and at the beginning of Sector 2 where the slowest part of the Baku circuit is located.

Why was Max Verstappen five-tenths slower than Sergio Perez?

That was the real headline on Friday. Max Verstappen was five-tenths slower than Sergio Perez! The telemetry revealed what went wrong from a Verstappen perspective.

Perez looks confident in one of his favourite tracks on the calendar, while Max suffered from understeer in the last corner – not counting the full throttle corners before the main straight- and lost a lot of acceleration before the final meters of the Baku street circuit. Up to that point, Verstappen and Perez’s times were very similar in Sectors 1 and 2.

Oliver Bearman can make F1 history in Baku

Oliver Bearman can this weekend become the first driver in history to score points in his first two F1 races with two different teams. And Haas has a car capable of putting the driver who replaces Kevin Magnussen in the points this weekend.

The American team has been very solid in both sessions on Friday and is aiming for the top 10. To do so, they will have to fight against Aston Martin and VCARB.

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