After setting the best time in the first free practice session, Sergio Pérez also secured the best time in the final practice session before qualifying on Saturday. The Red Bull driver mastered the street circuit in Baku in 1:43.170 minutes, relegating Charles Leclerc (Ferrari/+0.070) and his teammate Max Verstappen (+0.279) to second place.
Compared to Friday, the picture was different. First, Verstappen drove the absolute best time in the first and second sectors (at the time) when the pace slowly picked up. In the third sector, which includes the long start and finish straight, he was 0.206 seconds behind Leclerc on his fastest lap.
Leclerc then apparently worked on the set-up of his Ferrari and went chasing times again a good ten minutes before the end. This time he was also slower in the third sector, but much faster in the first and second. In the end, he undercut his own best time by 0.274 seconds.
Pérez: Best time at the last minute
But not everyone had shot their powder yet. Pérez, last year’s winner in Baku and reigning winner at the Monaco Grand Prix, drove out again with fresh softs in the last few minutes and moved up to P1. But others secured the sector best times: Verstappen in S1, Leclerc in S2 and Fernando Alonso (11th / Alpine / +1.672) in S3.
Verstappen had to end his fast lap after the best time in sector 1. But at Red Bull, the analyzes showed on Friday evening “that we are a bit faster with full tanks, i.e. in race trim. Ferrari seems to be on the individual lap,” explains motorsport consultant Helmut Marko in an interview with “ServusTV”.
Apart from the top two teams, there are no serious pole contenders for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix. Carlos Sainz in the second Ferrari finished fourth, 0.426s off Pérez. Lando Norris (McLaren) in P5 was already 1.248 seconds short of the Pérez best time. His teammate Daniel Ricciardo was sixth.
Hamilton is surprised: there is a lack of performance!
George Russell (+1.403) was eighth, Lewis Hamilton (1.675) twelfth. The seven-time world champion wondered: “Did you turn down the engine?” To which his race engineer Peter Bonnington replied, “Affirmative Lewis. We’re running out of miles on this engine.”
Mercedes doesn’t think it has any realistic chances on pole. “Our car is much more competitive on a slippery track like Barcelona,” says team manager Toto Wolff. “But as soon as it gets wavy somewhere, like in Monaco or in Baku, as soon as the curbs are a bit higher, the driving behavior is totally thrown overboard. Then you’re chasing the lap time.”
“Very clear answers” have been found to the “porpoising”, but “the solution has not yet been found as to how we can get there,” says Wolff, adding with regard to qualifying: “A good result would be to be the third fastest team on the track and to finish fifth and sixth. And if it goes better, then we’ll take it too.”
Qualifying: Will it be a slipstream battle?
With regard to qualifying, it will also be decisive who finds the best slipstream at the right moment. “Of course, that’s always an issue here,” confirms McLaren team boss Andreas Seidl in an interview with “Sky”. “It’s important to get a slipstream. Preferably from any opponent.”
Seidl does not believe that teammates will give each other slipstreams. And if it does, then “we just try to split it up fairly so that in the end every driver had the same advantage and disadvantage in qualifying”.
By the way: Qualifying will start 15 minutes later than planned, at 4:15 p.m. German time. The third free practice session had started 15 minutes later than planned due to an accident and the necessary track repairs in Formula 2. And according to the FIA regulations, there must be at least two hours between the end of FT3 and the start of Q1.