Baku is making its debut on the calendar in the European Grand Prix. So Friday’s practice will be their first chance to try out the circuit for real, and decide which to prioritize in auto set-up: Down-force to improve cornering speed in the twisty sections, or low drag on the two-kilometer (1.3-mile) long main straight. “Maybe the circuit was supposed to be the other way around”. It is just how it is.
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Although it is a new track, the action at the start was scarce, as teams waited for their rivals to clean up a very dirty circuit.
“I don’t understand. It’s super wide in some places – as wide as a motorway nearly, but, hopefully, it will be fun”.
Hamilton, who said he couldn’t stop thinking about Ali over the last 15 laps, then climbed onto the top of his auto and began shadow-boxing before jumping to the pavement for a bit of the Ali Shuffle.
“We work so hard on safety, improving circuits all the time and we come here and we have corners like T3, T7 and T14 that don’t have any run-off at all”. He tapped the wall on the entrance to turn three, and then overshot turn one at the picturesque but twisty and narrow Baku Street Circuit. There is not much you can do because there is a building in the way.
Rosberg was equally unimpressed.
The world champion, who had not seen the track until today, had an early finish to his session, however, after flat-spotting his tyres during a longer run late on. “The track looks great, the place is great”.
“There is a little bit of a concern, for sure, with those run offs”.
Rosberg says he is looking to bounce back from his two disappointing results this weekend in Baku.
“I really trust the FIA [the sport’s governing body] to get the job done”. They have all the calculations and the simulations, they know exactly the speeds at which we approach and everything. They know exactly the speeds. This is also I think one of the things that makes me very confident that we will start winning, sooner or later.
“There has never been a doubt this year of my speed, what I can do in the auto”.
Esteban Gutierrez had the honour of being the first F1 driver to take to the track, while Rosberg was the first man to complete a timed lap: a 1m57.306s seven minutes into the session.
“I don’t drive the simulator a lot because it’s not at it’s best at the moment – we’re working on trying to make it better”, Hamilton said.
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Max Verstappen completed just seven laps in the second Red Bull after an oil leak early in the session saw him return to the pits with smoke coming from the rear of his vehicle.
