Brake setup change key to Hamilton progress in Baku

Lewis Hamilton says his topping of Friday practice at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix is a sign his Ferrari transition is moving in the right direction. Although cautioning against reading too much into his front-running pace, the seven-time world champion was particularly pleased with the progress he said he made through the day with Ferrari’s Brembo brakes, which have been a chief bugbear for him this season after years using Carbon Industrie at Mercedes.

Hamilton has been battling for consistency in his first season with Ferrari, and Azerbaijan – a stronghold of teammate Charles Leclerc, who has won four straight pole positions on the Baku street circuit – was tipped as a challenging round for his momentum. But it was Hamilton, not Leclerc, who ended the day quickest, beating the Monegasque to the top spot in FP2 by 0.074s.

“It really has [been a positive day], thank the lord,” he said. “I’d say P1 was a bit of a mess – this is a circuit where you have to have mega confidence on the brakes, and I had some problems with the brakes. Then we made some changes going into P2, and the brakes finally were working perfectly – I was able to make some quick, big advantage in terms of gaining on the brakes.

“I’m really happy to see the progress. It just goes to show the direction we’ve been going as a team. I’m really, really grateful for everyone’s patience and everyone pushing so hard, because we’re really starting to see the progress come through.

“The support I’ve been getting back from everyone at the factory, everyone here – their patience and their support every weekend just lifting me up. And then the tifosi – we’ve been beaming from the energy from the tifosi in the last race. I’m hoping to take that energy that they gave us all the way through the rest of the season.”

It was a turnaround too on Hamilton’s downbeat appearance during his Thursday media duties, though the Briton cautioned against reading too much into his Friday bounce.

“It’s just a practice day,” he said. “I would say let’s not go too far.”

Ferrari had the run of Baku by the end of Friday, with Hamilton leading the next-best George Russell in third by 0.477s, albeit with neither McLaren driver completing a clean flying lap. Leclerc was optimistic that there was even more pace in the Ferrari but warned there was yet more still to come from the no-show Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri.

“I think there’s a lot more potential, especially coming from me – I didn’t do a great job today – but overall we seem to be pretty strong, so it’s good,” he said.

“But – and there’s a big but – it looks like McLaren is in another world literally, and I think people will be very surprised tomorrow, because Lando didn’t finish some laps that were very, very impressive.

“I doubt we’ll be in the fight with them, but compared to the others, it seems we are kind of in a good place.”

Even so, Leclerc – having taken the last four pole positions at this track as well as a Sprint pole in 2023 – isn’t willing to give up completely on his chances of a fifth successive P1 start in Baku.

“I don’t think there’s a battle for the win for now, but never say never,” he added. “I think in 2021 and in many qualifyings here I felt like it wasn’t possible and at the end we kind of made it, so I’ll keep my hopes high. But it looks unlikely.”