Friday Practice in Baku for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix showed the Red Bull are looking like the team to beat. After a strong showing in FP1, and FP2 Daniel Ricciardo looks like he’s in the groove this weekend, hot on the heels of his victory in China.

The Australian was not far off the pace in FP1 finishing 2nd fastest. In FP2 he finished top of the time sheets with team mate Max Verstappen a little bit off the pace finishing off a strong Friday for Red Bull.

Free Practice 1

The session was off to a busy start with the Mercedes drivers heading out unusually early in the session. Nevertheless it was Valtteri Bottas that edged out Daniel Ricciardo by 0.035s to finish fastest of the session. Bottas best time of the session was a 1:44.242.

In a really strong showing was the Force India of Sergio Perez finishing the session 3rd fastest ahead of Lewis Hamilton in 4th nearly one second off Bottas’ pace.

Esteban Ocon finished 5th fastest ahead of the second Red Bull of Max Verstappen. Although Verstappen had set a time early in the session, he was out of the session just as quick. The Dutchman lost the rear of his Red Bull under braking into T5 and tagged the barrier side on. He kept the car running and tried to get going again but he stalled the car and could not get it going again. The VSC was deployed to retrieve the stricken Red Bull. Verstappen sat out the rest of the session trackside.

The green and dusty track made conditions tricky and the notorious Turn 8 run off area came into play very quickly there were also a few other drivers that tested the limits of grip into various other corners around the track by aborting the corner and taking to the run off area.

Fernando Alonso, meanwhile, got on with McLaren’s program and finished the session 7th fastest. Sergei Sirotkin ended 8th in a very good session for Williams.

Sebastian Vettel rounded out the top 10 for Ferrari. Vettel complained about a lack of rear grip throughout the session and tried various tyres in a bit to try and find a viable setup. Kimi Raikkonen suffered a technical issue after 10-minutes and sat out the rest of the session.

At the end of the session it looked like Mercedes and Red Bull had it dialled in very early on in the session but the long runs of FP2 were still to come…

Three Baku podium specialists in the top three in FP1

With @ForceIndiaF1 looking strong 💪

And Ferrari perhaps yet to show their hand properly…#F1 #AzerbaijanGP 🇦🇿 pic.twitter.com/z4gX9fp4Wz

— Formula 1 (@F1) April 27, 2018

Free Practice 2

Free Practice 2 all but confirmed Red Bull’s strong pace with Ricciardo topping the session with a session best time of 1:42.795 just edging out Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen who set a best time of 1:42.864. Raikkonen did catch a small break courtesy of a tow from Hamilton down the long run to the finish line.

3rd Fastest was Max Verstappen who had a much cleaner FP2 but had an issue at the end of the session where he was told to come into the pits slowly. Red Bull, after the session revealed that a faulty sensor was the cause and that there is no real concern.

Valtteri Bottas finished 4th fastest ahead of team-mate Hamilton in 5th. Continuing their good run of form from FP1 was Esteban Ocon in the Force India finishing 7th ahead of another solid session for Carlos Sainz in the Renault.

Kevin Magnussen finished a good session for Haas in 9th with Nico Hulkenberg in the second Renault rounding out the top 10.

Sebastian Vettel in the second Ferrari did not feature in the top 10 with another scrappy session with rear grip once again the issue.

Like in FP1, the drivers continued to test the limits of grip under braking with a few drivers running into the run off areas around the circuit.

Marcus Ericsson in the Sauber was confined to the garage for the session after a gearbox issue was detected early in the session.

On the long runs Red Bull are coming out the fastest with Ferrari close behind. Mercedes are finding it hard to get heat into the tyres which means front and rear grip comes at a premium. On board shots of Hamilton’s car shows that the usually on rails Mercedes is quite a way off peak grip.

Red Bull seem to have the edge on one lap pace as well in Baku. Mercedes’ qualifying engine mode might spoil the party for the Bulls come qualifying which will make strategy quite important once again. With the Ultra soft being the qualifying tyre and with little durability, it looks like the soft tyre will be the favoured race tyre. And we know how well the softs suit the Mercedes. Red Bull have something to say about that though…

Red Bull looking strong in Baku 💪

Your full classification after FP2 👇#F1 #AzerbaijanGP 🇦🇿 pic.twitter.com/L64W0vlASB

— Formula 1 (@F1) April 27, 2018