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Daniel Ricciardo was top of the time sheets after the second Friday practice session, with a tight three team battle looking likely to commence come qualifying and the race. The front three cars of Ricciardo, Raikkonen and Verstappen were split by less than two tenths, and with Vettel and the two Mercedes likely to up their game as the weekend goes on it's anyone's guess who will come out on top come Sunday.
Both Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel made mistakes whilst on their qualifying runs in the tricky conditions, suggesting that their current positions of fifth and eleventh aren't representative of their true pace going forward, with the championship leaders expected to challenge for the race win come Sunday.
The fastest car of the midfield was perhaps surprisingly the McLaren of Fernando Alonso, with the cars supposed lack of straight line speed seemingly not affecting them as badly as some may have feared, but with the midfield again tightly packed its anyone's guess who will come out on top in the Baku.
Each of the midfield runners had at least one car hovering around the top ten, with Haas, Renault and Force India all looking like they could have a car that can challenge for points, with Force India still looking heavily improved from their early season form to go 7th and 12th and building on their impressive first practice session.
At the back of the field seemed to be the likes of Toro Rosso, Williams and Sauber, with both Toro Rosso and Sauber failing to really build on their impressive weekends back in Bahrain where both teams scored handy points, whilst Williams look set to continue their torrid form, with Stroll and Sirotikin managing only 14th and 17th respectively and look set to remain as the only team yet to score a point.
Sam Gale
Baku City Circuit - 27 April 2018
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Replies (15)
Login to replycalle.itw
Posts: 8,527
Red Bull looks surprisingly good. In theory this track should be a clear fit for Merc', but is seems like Red Bull's versatility isnt to be underestimated.
ajpennypacker
Posts: 2,475
Does anyone have the speed traps results? I'd love to see how they compare. I am very suprised to see Red Bull leading and a Mclaren up so high.
calle.itw
Posts: 8,527
Same, but then again I guess we shouldnt be surprised about RB. Remember the kinda straight line speed they had in Baku last year?
Pauli
Posts: 140
From my memory it looked like Ricciardo was 7-12 kph faster in the start straight than anyone else in top 6 in the quali simulation. Also Vettel didn't have clean qualification simulation but he has descent race pace that is about same what Ricciardo had. But Ricciardo and Räikkönen had a bit more traffic and overtakes in the race simulation run.
siggy74
Posts: 194
Alonso likes those concrete walls, reminds him of indy ;p
www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNxTOFjwLsc
siggy74
Posts: 194
Watched alonso on a lap, blimey he loves to shave the car close to those walls, nice to watch :)
mbmwe36
Posts: 533
Any word on Vandoorne? Did he have issues or did he just suck?
The Red Bulls look mighty impressive thus far. But in pretty sure both Ferrari and Mercedes didn't turn the engine up to "10". The question is how close to the limit the Bulls are.
calle.itw
Posts: 8,527
No issues according to his FB page. I honestly think its Alonso's skills doing the difference more than anything else.
ajpennypacker
Posts: 2,475
I think there's always the Alonso factor, but I would dare say Stoffel was doing longer runs with a heavier car? I didn't watch FP2 so correct me if I'm wrong. The difference between the two was too abysmal
calle.itw
Posts: 8,527
Apparently he wasnt? At least he seemed disappointed in his post on FB. But we'll see if more details come up.
mbmwe36
Posts: 533
The Alonso factor may be a real thing, but it's not 1,5 seconds real ;-)
I watched FP2 although I wasn't paying that close attention for the most part, and I didn't even notice Stoffel was down there until the announcers mentioned it 5 minutes before the flag. Either way it's just practice, we'll see what happens in qualifying. But it does seem odd.
xoya
Posts: 583
Alonso factor seems to be "I get all the updates 1st".
Pauli
Posts: 140
I watched FP2 but I don't remember seeing Vandoorne's quali simulation lap. But many drivers had problems locking tyres and then going wide or flat spot forcing abandoned lap.
wmponfire
Posts: 6
merc confirmed they turned down their engine performance
Madmaz
Posts: 14
Don’t get too excited about Alonso. Both McLaren and Alo said he caught a big tow from Hulkenberg giving him a few tenths. It looks like they’ll still have trouble cracking Q3.