Bottas tops opening practice in Baku

Bottas

Valtteri Bottas put his Mercedes atthe head of the timesheets as a number of drivers had off-track moments on the dirty city circuit in the opening Formula 1 practice session of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix weekend.

Bottas recorded a fastest lap time of 1:44.242 to finish just 0.035 seconds clear of Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo, who impressed with his run to P2 on the harder Supersoft tire.

Lewis Hamilton finished almost one second back of teammate Bottas, taking 4th place, but the rival Ferrari team did not try hard as the track was too slippery.

Sebastian Vettel could only finish 10th, completing 18 laps, while teammate Kimi Raikkonen was limited to just 10 laps due to a suspected rear brake issue that kept him in the garage for much of the session.

There was worse news for Max Verstappen in the second Red Bull, with his session coming to an early end after losing the rear of his car on entry to Turn 5 and hitting the barrier. The Dutchman was still able to finish sixth-fastest.

Results