F1 Results Today: Azerbaijan Grand Prix practice times and positions

Mercedes set the pace in both free practice sessions on Friday at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, with George Russell comfortably topping the timing sheets each time. However, the Silver Arrows didn't have things their own way.

Championship leader Kimi Antonelli suffered a hydraulics failure just 25 minutes and nine laps into FP1, also missing a big chunk of FP2 as his team worked on his car. However, he did set the second fastest time of the session when he did get out.

Max Verstappen was the best of the rest behind the Mercedes pair for the second time in as many sessions, albeit a full eight tenths back, with the Ferrari pair of Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc on his tail again.

McLaren's absence from the top five can at least in part be explained by a faintly bizarre strategy which saw Lando Norris abandon his fastest lap to dive into the pits.

For the second time in as many street races, Arvid Lindblad badly damaged his Racing Bulls car in a practice crash – tagging the right-hand wall at Turn 8 and sliding into the barriers again at Turn 10.

That brought out a red flag and compressed teams' run plans, and the remaining drivers were all somewhat lucky that Ollie Bearman was close to a run-off area when his engine gave up the ghost shortly after the restart.

Isack Hadjar returned to Red Bull after a three-race absence that came after he broke his wrist during the summer break. The Frenchman though was one of the first drivers on track in FP1 but had severe issues with pulling under braking that saw him fighting to keep his car out of the Baku walls on his way to P20. FP2 saw him return to something more like his pre-injury form, going ninth on the timing sheets.

Oh, and Fernando Alonso's Aston Martin got parked up in the garage with a suspected oil leak. Do try not to faint out of shock.

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Here are all the times following FP1 and FP2 at Baku.

Azerbaijan Grand Prix FP2 times

Azerbaijan Grand Prix FP1 times

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Written by

Dan Ripley - Global Editor

I've been a massive F1 fan since the mid 1990s and continue to study the history of the sport long before that. As an experienced motor sport reporter covering F1, MotoGP and the LeMans 24 Hour race, being part of GPFans has allowed me to work with a diverse team with all sorts of different backgrounds in watching the sport and given me a greater appreciation of F1.

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