Leclerc bounces back from crash, Sainz 'not 100%'

Charles Leclerc came out on top at the end of an eventful day of practice in Baku ahead ot this weekend's Azerbaijan Grand Prix, while Carlos Sainz had a lucky escape with the stewards.

Leclerc lost time in FP1 and completed just 11 laps in the first session after crashing early in the session. The team had to race to get the SF-24 back in one piece for the star of FP2.

However once he set off, Leclerc reported back to the team that something was "bent somewhere" and insisted on returning to the garage for the engineers to check it over and fix the problem.

Fortunately they managed to do so, and a delayed final flying lap on soft tyres saw Leclerc vault tot he top of the timings with a lap of 1:43.484s which put him six thousandths of s second ahead of Red Bull's Sergio Perez.

"The crash, there’s not much to go into," he told the media later. "I braked a little bit too much on the right where the track was still dirty, I locked up and it was too late to go to the right, so I went into the wall.

• Read also: Leclerc overcomes early gremlins to top FP2

“That wasn’t great to start the weekend, but I still had a lot of confidence in the car so there wasn’t much problem.

"Then the thing is that when we started FP2 there was an actual problem on the car that we saw later on, once I stopped, and we changed that particular part.

“It was nothing to do with the crash before, so the mechanics have done a really good job. We just had a problem with one new part that we had just put on the car," he continued.

"I won’t go too much into details but that was obviously giving me a very strange feeling with the steering wheel," he said. “We changed that, went again and then it was fine.

It did mean that Leclerc lost further time on top of his early exit from FP1. "It was not as many laps as what I would have hoped for on this Friday, but competitive anyway.”

Although he ended the day fastest, Leclerc said that it was looking too tight to tell how things looked for Ferrari this weekend.

"It’s one of the tracks that I quite like and we’ve been pretty quick in the past, but that doesn’t mean it will be the case for tomorrow. We still have to work on the car, there’s plenty to do to improve.

"There’s the driving to be improved quite a bit, because I was still taking a little bit my references in FP2. But again, we are fast so that’s a good sign. Hopefully just more to come tomorrow.”

Despite a few wayward moments, Sainz was also quick - P5 in FP1 and one place higher in FP2 - but then had to attend the stewards office after a late near-miss incident with Red Bull's Sergio Perez.

Perez had been on a flying lap when he came up behind Sainz as the Ferrari suddenly slowed going through the normally high-speed turn 14, forcing Perez to dive to the right to avoid Sainz.

“What is he doing?! That was very close!” Perez said over the Red Bull radio, which prompted the stewards to investigate the incident.

“Impeding in free practice is not normally investigated by the Stewards unless it is considered dangerous,” the stewards said in a statement, explaining that forcing Perez to the right at this corner counted as "potentially dangerous".

"Sainz admitted that he had seen Perez behind him, and the stewards noted that his team did warn him, but because he was distracted by a variety of alarms on the car, he misjudged the closing speed.

“The Stewards noted that he did start to avoid the car behind, but fractionally late. Perez stated that while he did have to lift, he had good visibility of the incident throughout and that it did not end up being particularly dangerous.

"Therefore the stewards issue a Warning to Sainz in accordance with the agreed guidelines," the statement concluded. A warning has no lasting impact on the remainder of the Grand Prix weekend.

Sainz shrugged off the incident and was looking forward to the rest ohe weekend with Ferrari looking in good form. “We had a few offs, but I think everyone did. The track was so tricky to drive, so dirty, so slippery.

“We kept it more or less clean, did the whole run plan," he continued. "We went through some issues with the brakes in FP1 and managed to make it better for FP2.

“We are confident we are on the pace together with the Red Bulls, the McLarens and the Mercs," he added. "It's going to be extremely tight and all about tyre preparation, putting the lap together, being at the right time the right place.

"Hopefully we are with the right side of things," he said. He's also hoping to be feeling match fit for the race after being under the weather on Friday.

"I’m not feeling 100 per cent with my neck," he revealed. " I think I slept really badly last night and I cannot move almost. I managed to make it through the day and [should be] ready for tomorrow.”

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