What the teams said – Friday at the 2024 Azerbaijan Grand Prix

Mercedes

Operating the older spec flooring, Hamilton appeared assured from the off and spent a lot of the session on high of the leaderboard, earlier than he was pipped late on by outdated foe Verstappen. Russell was barely additional again, then missed the beginning of FP2 because of a precautionary PU change. He missed an honest chunk of the second session earlier than being known as again to the pits with a problem a couple of minutes earlier than the chequered flag fell. That was the dangerous information – the excellent news was that Hamilton appeared equally fast in FP2, signalling that the older flooring appears to be delivering the products proper now.

READ MORE: ‘I was struggling’ – Russell insists he needs to ‘step up my game’ after tricky Friday in Baku

Lewis Hamilton – FP1: 1:45.859, P2; FP2: 1:43.550, P3

“Right now was a very good day. I loved it from the beginning because the automotive felt sturdy from the primary laps on observe. We made some optimistic incremental steps on the set-up. There was nothing we needed to come again on, and we continued to construct all through. Tempo smart, we didn’t full an enormous variety of laps on our future in FP2. We must do some comparisons tonight subsequently to see the place our relative velocity is. Our standard opponents appeared sturdy, however I believe we’re there or thereabouts. That’s encouraging and was our hope coming into this weekend. We are going to keep cautious and vigilant although. We are going to work exhausting tonight to try to discover extra beneficial properties and see what we will do in qualifying tomorrow.”

George Russell – FP1: 1:46.516, P8; FP2: 1:44.536, P9

“Right now wasn’t the smoothest Friday we’ve ever had. Sadly, we misplaced a bit little bit of working time with a precautionary energy unit change forward of FP2. As soon as we had been out on observe, I wasn’t fully proud of the steadiness of the automotive. I used to be struggling to get the tyres in the best window and was missing a bit confidence. I’ll work exhausting in a single day to enhance on that, step my recreation up for tomorrow and shut the hole. The excellent news is that Lewis was trying very fast on the market. It encourages us that the automotive is powerful, and we might be aggressive this weekend. It appears very shut between a number of groups, with Ferrari particularly trying sturdy. If we will make enhancements in a single day although we will goal to be within the combine for qualifying and the race on Sunday.”

Andrew Shovlin, Trackside Engineering Director

“Lewis had two first rate classes and completed the day proud of the automotive. His tempo additionally appeared smart though we all know the areas we have started working on. Total, we’re happy with how his weekend has began. As has been the case in current races, it appears very tight on the entrance by way of single lap, so we’ll be working exhausting in a single day to search out each little bit of lap time. Compared to Lewis, George had a more difficult day. He wasn’t very proud of the steadiness of the automotive in FP1, so we spent that session making an attempt to enhance it. Shortly after FP1 completed, we noticed a problem with the facility unit that led us to take the cautious strategy of swapping it out for FP2. That sadly value him 25 minutes of worthwhile observe time and while we acquired to run each tyres, the programme was compromised. We’ll be aiming to recuperate among the misplaced floor with George tomorrow in FP3.”