Azerbaijan GP: Russell edges Antonelli in disrupted FP2

George Russell strengthened Mercedes’ early grip on the Azerbaijan Grand Prix weekend by topping a Thursday’s FP2 in Baku, comfortably heading team-mate Kimi Antonelli as the Silver Arrows produced a formidable one-two.

With Saturday’s race schedule brought forward to accommodate Sunday’s national holiday, Thursday provided the main preparation day on Baku’s spectacular 6km street circuit.

The session was barely 10 minutes old when Racing Bulls rookie Arvid Lindblad clipped the protruding wall at the narrow Turn 9 castle section, bringing out the red flags. The interruption lasted until the halfway mark as debris was cleared.

• Azerbaijan Grand Prix Free Practice 2 - Results

Once running resumed, another stoppage of sorts hit Haas, with Oliver Bearman reporting a power unit failure shortly after leaving the pits.

The timesheets only began to take shape when the field switched from medium to soft tyres. Charles Leclerc initially set the pace with a 1m44.473s, but Russell immediately raised the bar with a 1m43.759s.

Mercedes, however, was only getting started.

Russell found another four tenths to lower the benchmark to 1m43.347s, while Antonelli moved into second, half a second adrift. After losing significant running time to a mechanical problem in FP1, the championship leader at least enjoyed a much cleaner afternoon.

Verstappen faces Mercedes deficit

Max Verstappen recovered third place for Red Bull, but the Dutchman remained more than eight-tenths off Russell’s pace, leaving Mercedes with a substantial advantage heading into the final practice session.

Leclerc finished fourth, with Lewis Hamilton fifth for Ferrari.

Lando Norris led the McLaren challenge in sixth, although his 1.5-second deficit came without a representative qualifying simulation as the team continued working through its sizeable package designed to improve the MCL40’s low-speed performance.

Pierre Gasly split Norris from team-mate Oscar Piastri in seventh, while Isack Hadjar and Esteban Ocon completed the top ten.

Alonso suffers another setback

Aston Martin endured another frustrating session as Fernando Alonso managed just nine laps before being confined to the garage with a suspected oil leak.

With Lindblad’s crash, Bearman’s power unit failure and Alonso’s apparent engine problem adding to the disruption, Mercedes emerged from a messy FP2 looking particularly comfortable — and Russell now heads into Friday’s final preparations with the clearest early statement of intent.

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