Daniel Ricciardo narrowly beat Kimi Raikkonen to the fastest time in the second practice session for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
The Red Bull driver’s best effort was a 1’42.795 which he set on ultra-soft tyres. He took a few laps to set the time, his tyres giving up more grip in his qualifying simulation run on a comparatively cool track where temperatures fell to 26C.
Raikkonen got within a tenth of a second of Ricciardo’s time but his Ferrari team mate Sebastian Vettel ended up 11th-quickest after a trip down one of the escape roads at the track.
Max Verstappen recovered from his crash in first practice to set the third-quickest time, just over a tenth of a second behind his team mate. However he suffered another setback in the final minutes, cruising into the pits with an apparent technical problem on his RB14.
There was little to choose between the Mercedes pair though the silver cars lagged some way off the pace. Valtteri Bottas was over three-quarters of a second off Ricciardo’s benchmark time.
Lewis Hamilton, fifth, was only a tenth of a second ahead of Fernando Alonso’s McLaren, which led a closely-matched and varied midfield. The rest of the top 10 included Esteban Ocon’s Force India, Kevin Magnussen’s Haas and both the Renaults. Carlos Sainz Jnr was the quicker of the latter pair, enjoying a better session having been slowest in the first 90 minutes of running.
Despite complaining about the balance of his car Lance Stroll set the 14th-quickest time for Williams, putting them ahead of Toro Rosso and Sauber.
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Second practice visual gaps
Daniel Ricciardo – 1’42.795
+0.069 Kimi Raikkonen – 1’42.864
+0.116 Max Verstappen – 1’42.911
+0.775 Valtteri Bottas – 1’43.570
+0.808 Lewis Hamilton – 1’43.603
+0.905 Fernando Alonso – 1’43.700
+1.019 Esteban Ocon – 1’43.814
+1.039 Carlos Sainz Jnr – 1’43.834
+1.182 Kevin Magnussen – 1’43.977
+1.296 Nico Hulkenberg – 1’44.091
+1.332 Sebastian Vettel – 1’44.127
+1.347 Sergio Perez – 1’44.142
+1.630 Romain Grosjean – 1’44.425
+1.664 Lance Stroll – 1’44.459
+1.917 Pierre Gasly – 1’44.712
+2.145 Charles Leclerc – 1’44.940
+2.212 Sergey Sirotkin – 1’45.007
+2.256 Brendon Hartley – 1’45.051
+2.493 Stoffel Vandoorne – 1’45.288
+3.247 Marcus Ericsson – 1’46.042
Drivers more then ten seconds off the pace omitted.
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