F1 News, Reports and Race Results

LIVE: Grand Prix of Europe Qualifying

Follow qualifying for this year's Grand Prix of Europe from Baku, with all the action being brought to you live with comprehensive as-it-happens coverage from F1i.

Lewis Hamilton has topped all three practice sessions so far this weekend and has to be the hot favourite for pole position this afternoon. However he's not had it all his own way and there have been a new mishaps for him as well, although none of them too serious.

Hamilton's Mercedes team mate Nico Rosberg is the best of the rest so far, but can he find that extra little bit he needs to put him out in front in qualifying?

It's been a good weekend up to now for the other Mercedes-powered teams with Force India and Williams both looking strong on Friday. Nico Hulkenberg was third fastest in this morning's FP3as well, but his team mate Sergio Perez crashes at the end of the session meaning that the team are up against it to get his car rebuilt in time for qualifying.

Having been third fastest on Friday morning, Valtteri Bottas is also relying on his pit crew to get his Williams back up and running in time for this afternoon's qualifying. His car was also badly damaged in FP3, but through not fault of his own - a drain over on pit lane came loose as he was driving over it, inflicting serious damage to the car meaning that he wasn't able to take part in the session.

After sluggish starts on Friday, both Red Bull and Ferrari seems to be finding their feet in Baku. Daniel Ricciardo was fourth fastest this morning and Sebastian Vettel was close behind in sixth place. Whether they have sufficient raw power to out-muscle the Mercedes contingent down the superfast two kilometre straight remains to be seen.

The biggest factor deciding this afternoon's qualifying is likely to be the track itself. We've already seen a lot of cars taking to the escape road so waved yellows could thwart many a qualifying lap this afternoon. We've only seen two red flags so far (for Ricciardo in FP1 and Perez in FP3 for identical accidents at turn 15) but that could very well rise when things really get competitive today.

Everyone will be pushing really hard this afternoon when qualifying gets underway at 5pm local time (2pm BST), and F1i is here to bring you every minute of the session live and as-it-happens from trackside on our live page. You won't want to miss out on a thing!

FP3 REPORT: Hamilton advantage cut to 0.25s in FP3

Chris Medland’s 2016 Grand Prix of Europe preview

Technical analysis - Canada

Keep up to date with all the F1 news via Facebook and Twitter

Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.