Max fourth in Baku after the first day: 'The balance was fine'

Published on 26 April 2019 by Mike Motilall

Max Verstappen finished fourth after the first day of practice in the capital of Azerbaijan. After the issue with a loose manhole cover, causing the first free practice to be prematurely cancelled, Charles Leclerc topped the leaderboard in his Ferrari in the second part of qualifying. Team mate Sebastian Vettel came in second followed by Lewis Hamilton, the first of the two Mercedes.

“The balance was fine”, says Max after the second free practice. “It can always be better, but at this moment, after missing first free practice, it was alright. If you’re not entirely happy with the balance, you can’t change a lot on the car because you only have that session to do it and you also want to do a bit of running. In the end it was alright. Of course we are still missing a bit of lap time, but I am not too worried that we can close the gap a little.”

Looking ahead at tomorrow, Max continues: “I am happy what we achieved today. We will need to look at the data because there are still some areas where we can still improve ourselves. But it’s more fine tuning. We don’t have any expectations for tomorrow because everyone can still massively improve themselves also. But as I said before, the balance is good and we managed to do some good laps on both tyre compounds as well.”

The Williams’ team have reported at the beginning of the session that they are building a new chassis for George Russell. This means that the young Briton won’t see any action today.

At the start of the second session, both Mercedes are already at the end of the pit lane waiting for the light to turn green. After one lap, Valtteri Bottas misses Turn two, spins his car around and is able to continue on unscathed. A lap later, the Finn misses the first corner and once more he is able to continue on without any issues.

After eight minutes, Max is also out on track. Only Daniil Kvyat is still inside. The Dutchman has a set of the mediums strapped on to his car. His first timed lap puts him in P14. A sign that he is slowly building things up. After that, it’s Lewis Hamilton’s turn to miss a corner. The reigning world champion out brakes himself but he is also able to continue on without any damages.

Lance Stroll triggers a red flag after fifteen minutes. The Canadian misses a corner, slams into the wall and damages his car severely. Once more, valuable practice time is lost. Just before this incident, we see Charles Leclerc, in Max’ wake, hit the wall also. The Monegasque is able to continue on and reach the pits without any further assistance and apparently without any major damages whatsoever.

When the track has been cleared, Robert Kubica’s Williams is the first one out on track. Max, Sebastian Vettel and some more follow suit. Vettel is also caught out as he out brakes himself. The German manages to keep his Ferrari from hitting the wall and he continues on as well. On the medium tyres, Max briefly makes it to P2. The rest of the drivers are all on the softs, causing the Dutchman to drop down the ranks to P6. At the front of the field, Ferrari is calling the shots. Both Mercedes trail by over half a second.

Pierre Gasly and Daniel Ricciardo are the next ones who miss a corner when braking. Meanwhile, Max is back out on track for a second run. The Dutchman has now been given the soft compound tyre. With a top speed of 328 km/hr, he moves up to P4, nine tenths down on Leclerc’s time, who is P1.

With less than half an hour to to, Kvyat brings out the red flag. The Russian, driving for Scuderia Toro Rosso, loses grip in Turn 7 and hits the wall sideways. A small fire that has started at the left front wheel is quickly extinguished by a marshall.

With well over fifteen minutes to go, the track is cleared again. It takes almost five minutes before we see Max back out on track again. He is on a scrubbed set of softs which makes an improvement in time almost impossible. In the closing stages we witness a brief moment between Hamilton and Kevin Magnussen. They briefly make contact while both were in a high speed corner. And with that, the session comes to an end.

Azerbaijan GP contest: Win a Red Bull Racing 2019 polo!

Results second free practice Azerbaijan: