Azerbaijan GP: Franco Colapinto blots copybook with FP1 crash, so does Charles Leclerc

Franco Colapinto issued a heartfelt “sorry” as he put his Williams into the wall in FP1 in Baku, but he was in good company as Charles Leclerc also crashed.

In a session that was interrupted by by three red flags, the very first for debris, Max Verstappen set the pace by three-tenths ahead of Lewis Hamilton with Sergio Perez third.

Max Verstappen quickest in red-flag interrupted FP1

Williams Alex Albon led the field out onto a dusty Baku street circuit with Oscar Piastri complaining about “very, very low grip”. He still went P1 with a 1:50.0, putting him ahead of Valtteri Bottas, and Haas driver Oliver Bearman, who is replacing the banned Kevin Magnussen for round 17.

10 minutes in, the P1 time was down to a 1:47.6, that set by Lewis Hamilton , who was again complaining that the seat of his W15 was “very hot”. Charles Leclerc was P2, and Bottas had taken to an escape road on the tight circuit.

With practice the time to resolve any car issues, Albon was back in the pits as Williams worked on his FW46 and Piastri had “quite high” bottoming “levels”. For Lance Stroll, though, it was even worse as he bemoaned “this is not a car, this is not a car right now”.

Max Verstappen was the next to hit the front, and then out came the red flag. But with all 20 drivers making their way back into the pits, there was some confusion as to the cause mixed with worries about a repeat of last year’s drain cover issue.

It was not the drain covers, it was a piece of metal, about two square inches, at Turn 12 that a marshal had to run out to recover.

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Back underway with 43 minutes on the clock, the problems continued to reveal themselves with Esteban Ocon slowly touring back to the pits with “no power”, Carlos Sainz had to reverse out of the Turn 7 escape road, and Leclerc, P1 at the time with a 1:46.6, went nose-first into the Turn 15 barrier.

Red flag! Although it seems as if he had carried too much speed into the corner, the Ferrari driver blamed the “dirt” on the outside of the corner.

Back underway with 26 minutes, Alpine confirmed a power unit issue for Ocon, Bearman had a close encounter with Franco Colapinto in the pit lane, and Sergio Perez put in the first soft tyre run out out of the frontrunners to go P1 with a 11:46.5 but seconds later he was pushed down to third by Lando Norris and Piastri.

Red flag! Colapinto lost the rear end out of Turn 4 and slammed in the wall. With the left side of his FW46 taking a hard hit, he said: “Sorry for that guys.”

The drivers were back out on track with 11 minutes remaining with Albon bringing out the yellow flags as he briefly stopped on the side of the track before Hamilton and then Russell went up escape roads.

Verstappen finished fastest of all with a 1:45.546, putting him three-tenths up on Hamilton with Sergio Perez third.

Times

1. Max Verstappen Red Bull 1:45.546
2. Lewis Hamilton Mercedes +0.313
3. Sergio Perez Red Bull +0.376
4. Lando Norris McLaren +0.481
5. Carlos Sainz Ferrari +0.627
6. Oscar Piastri McLaren +0.736
7. Fernando Alonso Aston Martin +0.906
8. George Russell Mercedes +0.970
9. Charles Leclerc Ferrari +1.062
10. Daniel Ricciardo VCARB +1.141
11. Oliver Bearman Haas +1.427
12. Nico Hulkenberg Haas +1.589
13. Lance Stroll Aston Martin +1.638
14. Valtteri Bottas Sauber +2.094
15. Yuki Tsunoda VCARB +2.162
16. Franco Colapinto Williams +2.355
17. Alex Albon Williams +2.409
18. Pierre Gasly Alpine +3.166
19. Zhou Guanyu Sauber +3.506
20. Esteban Ocon Alpine No time

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