2024 F1 Round 17, Azerbaijan Grand Prix FP2: Leclerc edges Pérez by 0.006s to go fastest, Yuki Tsunoda climbs to 11th with new floor

Friday’s second practice session for the 2024 F1 Azerbaijan Grand Prix concluded on the evening of 13 September, China Standard Time (UTC+8). Charles Leclerc, who had crashed in the morning, topped the timesheets in his repaired car with a 1:43.484, but edged Sergio Pérez by the tiniest of margins—just 0.006s. In fact, the Baku circuit’s only two-time winner may have been Friday’s true pacesetter. Yuki Tsunoda climbed to 11th after switching to a new floor.

It was a turbulent afternoon for Leclerc. As soon as he took his repaired car out following the morning crash, he reported an unusual steering feel to the team: heavier in left-hand corners and lighter in right-handers. He repeatedly asked whether the data looked normal; after being told “Everything is normal”, he replied bluntly, “That’s impossible”, and returned to the pits. The team was forced to carry out a second round of repairs, completely disrupting his planned flying laps. He eventually switched to a soft-tyre push late in the session, when track conditions had improved markedly, and only then narrowly edged Pérez for the top spot. Before the end of the session, Pérez also nearly collided with Sainz in the second sector, making his anger abundantly clear. Race officials launched an investigation into the incident.

Hamilton was third, 0.066s off the pace, with Sainz fourth and Piastri fifth. Mercedes took a tactical step back in this session: with running at Zandvoort limited by the weather and Monza disrupted by Antonelli’s crash, the team still lacked useful data on the new floor introduced at Spa, and driver feedback had been poor. The team therefore removed it and reverted to the old specification. Verstappen braked too late at Turn 5 and nearly hit the wall, eventually finishing only sixth, 0.5s behind his team-mate.

Tsunoda and his team-mate swapped configurations for this session: he used the new floor for the first time, while Ricciardo reverted to the old version. The effect was immediate—Tsunoda rose to 11th with a 1:44.645, ahead of Alonso, while Ricciardo slipped to 16th. Bearman, who had impressed in the previous session, took another step forward to finish 10th, just 0.072s behind Hülkenberg; Russell lost a significant amount of time to an engine change, completing just 16 laps and finishing ninth. Norris was held up by Gasly in a flat-out section on his final flying lap and had to settle for 17th. The French Alpine driver later apologised over the radio, saying he had been dealing with a battery fault.

Alpine’s nightmare continued: an MGU-H failure forced Ocon to change his power unit, and he was only 19th, with Gasly 18th and Zhou Guanyu last. The third practice session will take place on the afternoon of 14 September, China Standard Time (UTC+8).