2018 Azerbaijan Grand Prix – Friday

Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport gear up for a challenging three-way fight in Baku

• Valtteri finished the first session of the day at the top of the timesheets, with Lewis in P4
• Valtteri ended the day in P4 with Lewis just behind in P5
• Both drivers used the SuperSoft and the UltraSoft compound tyres in FP1
• In FP2, Valtteri ran the SuperSoft and UltraSoft compounds while Lewis used the Soft and UltraSoft tyres

Valtteri Bottas

FP1 was better than FP2 because I think we were missing a bit of pace in the second session compared to Ferrari and Red Bull. It was quite difficult to get a lap together, even my best lap today was a bit a messy. It’s not an easy car to drive at the moment, we have some work to do with the balance. But if we get everything right, the car is quick. We have plenty of things to look at tonight so that we make the right changes for tomorrow and Sunday. The fact that we’re here in Baku earlier than in previous years definitely affects the tyres, but the biggest concern is the wind. It’s supposed to be very windy tomorrow and on Sunday which makes a lot of a difference on a street circuit.

Lewis Hamilton

It’s been a smooth day. We got through everything we needed without many mistakes and we gathered lots of information. It started out quite warm but cooled down in the afternoon, which made it interesting to try and understand the tyres in both conditions. Overall, we weren’t quick enough today, both Red Bull and Ferrari seem to be ahead of us at the moment. So we’ve got some work to do. I’m going to be knocking on the doors of all the engineers overnight, so that we can hopefully make the right changes.

James Allison

It was a day of learning at this very unusual track. But even though we’ve made progress, we’ve got a lot more to do tonight in order to be able to take the fight to a very fast Red Bull. But we have plenty of directions to head in; I’m looking forward to the remainder of the weekend, which we’re sure is going to be a competitive one.