Leclerc recovers from crash to top second practice for Azerbaijan GP

Charles Leclerc of Ferrari recovered from a crash in first practice to top the second session at the Formula One Azerbaijan Grand Prix on Friday.

The Monegasque, who won his team's home Monza GP two weeks ago, clocked 1 minute 43.484 seconds around the narrow street circuit to beat the Red Bull of Sergio Perez, by 0.006 seconds. Lewis Hamilton of Mercedes was third.

Leclerc failed to make it around Turn 15 and crashed his Ferrari in first practice. He has a bitter past in Baku, with crashes in qualifying in 2019 and in the sprint race qualifying in 2023.

Three-time defending champion Max Verstappen topped the first practice, but the Red Bull driver was only fifth in the second session.

Verstappen still tops the drivers' standings, 62 points ahead of Lando Norris of McLaren, but the Dutchman hasn't won in six races and failed to make it to the podium in four of them. Norris finished the session in 17th.

Leclerc's team-mate Carlos Sainz was fourth, while Oscar Piastri was fifth in the other McLaren and George Russell was ninth in the second Mercedes.

Russell was told to return to the boxes shortly before the end of the session due to reliability issues with the car.

First practice earlier was plagued by red flags, the first one coming early in the session after marshals had to go on track to remove a small piece of metal that could definitely cause damage to the cars.

The session was again interrupted at the half-hour mark after Leclerc crashed his Ferrari and a final red flag came out with some 15 minutes left in the session after Franco Colapinto slid wide into the wall and caused a lot of damage to his Williams.

Haas had Ollie Bearman in one for their cars, replacing the suspended Kevin Magnussen. Bearman, who will have a full-time seat at the US team next year, was 10th and on Sunday will be looking to become the first driver to score points for two different constructors in his two first races.

Qualifying for the Azerbaijan GP is on Saturday after the final practice session.