George Russell completed a clean sweep of Thursday practice at the Baku City Circuit by topping the times in both FP1 and FP2. The Mercedes driver set the pace in the second session ahead of team mate Kimi Antonelli and Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, working his way down to a time of 1m 43.347s on Pirelli’s soft compound tyre. That put him half a second up on championship leader Antonelli, with Verstappen a further three tenths back.
Cars headed out onto the track as the green light switched on at the end of the pit lane at 1600 local time, under a setting sun at the Baku City Circuit and an air temperature sitting at 30 degrees Celcius. Early running mostly utilised medium or hard tyres. Verstappen set an early benchmark of 1m 45.115s but immediately hopped on the radio to complain about his machine's behaviour. “I’m constantly counter-steering because my rear axle is coming off the ground,” the four-time World Champion stressed, before improving to a 1m 44.492s on medium tyres to go a few hundredths faster than Russell on the same compound.
Behind them, Lando Norris slotted into third over Lewis Hamilton, the returning Isack Hadjar, Charles Leclerc, and team mate Oscar Piastri. The two McLarens were running a makeshift solution to their FP1 floorboard issues using plastic cable ties.
Drama struck just under 20 minutes into the session when a red flag stopped the running. Arvid Lindblad pushed too hard through the Turn 8/9 castle section, thumped the wall, and brought his Racing Bulls car to a halt with significant right-hand-side damage. “I’m really sorry,” the British rookie said over the radio, noting he had also crashed during FP2 in Madrid previously. “I think I literally clipped it by like a millimetre,” he added, before being collected by the Medical Car.
The track cleared and the session resumed at 1629 local time, shifting the focus to Qualifying-style soft tyre simulations. Moments later, however, Ollie Bearman hit trouble for Haas. “My engine switched off and just… broke,” Bearman sighed, parking his car in an escape road.
As Bearman and Lindblad watched from the sidelines, the rest of the field unleashed their soft-shod pace. Russell pumped in a 1m 43.759s to lead Verstappen by four tenths, while Leclerc, Hamilton, and Antonelli trailed. Another round of runs brought Russell's 1m 43.347s, and Antonelli delivered a significant improvement to go second with a 1m 43.899s. Verstappen dropped to third, followed by Leclerc, Hamilton, and Norris.
Pierre Gasly put his Alpine seventh ahead of Piastri, Hadjar, and the sole remaining Haas of Esteban Ocon. Team mate Franco Colapinto followed, with Racing Bulls driver Liam Lawson taking 12th after being frustrated by a slow-moving Hamilton in the final sector. Sergio Perez was next for Cadillac, ahead of Gabriel Bortoleto and Nico Hulkenberg in 14th and 15th for Audi as they evaluated updates, just ahead of the upgraded Williams cars of Alex Albon and Carlos Sainz. Lindblad, Valtteri Bottas in the other Cadillac, Bearman, and the Aston Martins rounded out the order, with Fernando Alonso’s running limited by a suspected oil leak.
Teams and drivers will now review the data overnight before returning for the final hour of practice at 1230 local time on Friday.
