EL1: Red Bull in the lead in Baku, Pérez in the wall

The pilots Red Bull Max Verstappen et Daniel Ricciardo were the fastest in the first practice session of the Azerbaijan GP contested on the streets of Baku. The Dutchman was the fastest with a lap completed in 1'44''410 on the super soft tires, beating his teammate Daniel Ricciardo by almost half a second.

Sebastian Vettel (Ferrari) was the closest to the RB13s at almost 6 tenths of the reference, but the Championship leader signed his best time on soft tires and the hierarchy of the field remains difficult to establish, his teammate Kimi Räikkönen only clocking in at the 9th place.

The Force India showed promising performances as Sergio Pérez finished 4th, almost a second behind the first Red Bull, while his teammate Esteban Ocon took 7th place ahead of Felipe Massa (Williams). However, the morning got complicated for Vijay Mallya's team, the Mexican hitting the inside wall of turn 8 and tearing off the right front wheel of his VJM10.

RED FLAG

PER hits the wall at the narrow section at Turn 8 and the session is halted while the track is cleared#AzerbaijanGP #F1Baku pic.twitter.com/gMJiWcZBLR

— Formula 1 (@F1) 23th June 2017

The Mercedes remained discreet, Lewis Hamilton ranking 5th, one second behind Max Verstappen in front of his teammate Valtteri Bottas.

Daniil Kvyat (Toro Rosso) completed the top ten ahead Lance stroll (Williams) who preceded the Haas de Kevin Magnussen et Romain Grosjean separated into a little more than a tenth. Nico Hulkenberg (Renault) beat Stoffel Vandoorne (McLaren), Carlos Sainz Jr (Toro Rosso), Fernando Alonso (McLaren), Jolyon Palmer (Renault) and the Saubers of Pascal Wehrlein and Marcus Ericsson.

The second practice session for the Azerbaijan GP will take place from 15 p.m. to 16:30 p.m. French time.