George Russell got the tow, George Russell got the time, and George Russell got to watch both title protagonists’ garages descend into minor chaos while he did it. First practice for the Qatar Airways Azerbaijan Grand Prix produced a result that flattered Mercedes and Red Bull equally: quick at the front, falling apart everywhere else.
Russell used a slipstream from Fernando Alonso to post a 1:45.387 on soft tyres, four tenths clear of Max Verstappen, with Charles Leclerc third for Ferrari. Straightforward enough. What wasn’t straightforward was the state of both title fights’ supporting casts by the time the chequered flag fell.
Two Teammates, Two Very Different Bad Days
Isack Hadjar made his return to the Red Bull cockpit after missing races with a wrist injury, and the RB22 marked the occasion by trying to break his other wrist. “Crazy pulling on the brakes. Nearly shunted into the wall,” he told his engineers, which is not the sort of update you want after weeks away from the car. Things got worse. A suspected engine problem limited him to just eight laps before his car went up on jacks with mechanics swarming over it, and he eventually crossed the line 20th, over two seconds off Russell’s pace.
Kimi Antonelli’s session was a different flavour of misery. The championship leader had just gone quickest on the hard Pirellis, a 1:46.265 that briefly put him top, when he reported “lost hydraulics” on his out-lap and had to stop at Turn 7 with his brakes smoking. A marshal had to spray the car down. Antonelli finished the session fifth, which sounds respectable until you remember he was on his way to the top before the car quit on him. That failure has already been covered in detail in our report on the smoky Mercedes issue, so there’s no need to relitigate the smell of burning hydraulic fluid here. What matters for this session is that Red Bull and Mercedes both spent FP1 nursing a car that wasn’t the one leading the timesheet.
Brakes Were the Theme, Fire Was the Punchline
If there was a unifying complaint across the Baku City Circuit on Thursday, it was brakes. Oscar Piastri told McLaren the vibration through his pedal was “twice as bad” as anything he’d previously experienced, which is quite a claim from a driver who has presumably experienced quite a lot of bad brakes over a career. Alexander Albon radioed in about his own feeling strange, and then his Williams teammate Carlos Sainz settled the argument for the whole grid by pulling into the pits with his rear brakes visibly on fire. Williams had brought a fresh batch of upgrades to Baku for the occasion, which is one way to christen new parts.
Verstappen wasn’t immune either, complaining early about the car “pulling to the right” before switching to softs and dropping a 1:45.787 that stood as the benchmark until Russell’s tow-assisted lap. He also had a heavy lock-up and went straight on at Turn 1, for good measure. Leclerc had his own moment at the same corner after taking a tow from Verstappen and running out of talent, or road, or both, and had to bail down the escape road.
A Session Nobody Finished Cleanly
Baku’s walls claimed their usual toll on confidence if not metal. Russell himself went in hot at Turn 3 and had to bail out, missing the barrier by inches. Liam Lawson, back in the Racing Bulls after his Red Bull loan spell ended (a swap covered here when Hadjar reclaimed his seat), had a close encounter with a wall of his own. Alonso went off at Turn 1, Gabriel Bortoleto had a moment at Turn 10, Arvid Lindblad brought out yellow flags after getting it wrong at Turn 7, and Nico Hulkenberg stopped at Turn 4 to trigger a Virtual Safety Car. Esteban Ocon rounded things off by stopping at the pit exit with two minutes left, though he did at least get going again.
Piastri’s session ended early too, McLaren telling him to shut the car down, while his teammate Lando Norris spent time in the garage having completed only a handful of laps before returning with his floor reattached by a stay. None of this screams a circuit anyone has fully tamed, upgrades or not.
What the Timesheet Actually Says
Strip out the drama and the pecking order at the top looks conventional: Mercedes and Ferrari quick, Red Bull competitive, McLaren mid-pack and quietly grateful nobody was watching too closely. But FP1 pace on a Thursday in Baku, a circuit where slipstreams and low fuel loads flatter times that qualifying will make meaningless, is worth roughly as much as the paper it’s printed on. Session two later on Thursday, at 12:00 UTC (check the calendar for your local time), will tell us more, assuming everyone’s brakes survive that long.
