Sergio Perez led a Red Bull 1-2 during second practice for Formula 1’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix as reigning World Champions Mercedes struggled for performance.
Perez, who twice finished on the podium at the Baku City Circuit with Force India, clocked a time of 1:42.115 on the Soft tyre runs on Friday afternoon.
Perez’s effort left him 0.110s up on team-mate and championship leader Max Verstappen, who had set the pace in the first session.
Ferrari finished a respectable third and fourth as it showed glimpses of performance to suggest its Monaco display was not a complete anomaly.
Sainz was just 0.027s behind Verstappen while Charles Leclerc was on a potential session-topping lap when he hit the wall.
Leclerc carried too much speed into Turn 15 and, having attempted to make the corner, realised that was not possible and went straight on nose-first into the barrier.
The front-end of the SF21 sustained damage, with marshals having to remove parts of the front wing that were left on the circuit, but Leclerc was able to recover the car back to the pit lane.
Mercedes all at sea
Mercedes struggled for pace in Monaco, with the low-energy circuit and slow-speed corners contributing to tyre warm-up issues in the W12.
Despite those issues Valtteri Bottas still qualified third, running second in the race, and felt pole position was within his reach prior to Leclerc’s Q3 error.
But on Friday afternoon Mercedes finished with both cars in the bottom half of the leaderboard.
Lewis Hamilton took 11th, over a second behind Perez, with team-mate Bottas two seconds down on the Red Bull driver in 16th spot.
“Do whatever we need to do, I’m not going to go any faster,” said a downbeat Hamilton as he prepared to pit after his Soft tyre run. “I don’t know where all the time is.”
Rivals ensure Mercedes only seventh-best
Such was the lack of one-lap performance that Mercedes finished the day as only the seventh-fastest team.
Pierre Gasly reinforced AlphaTauri’s potential by taking fifth, behind only the Red Bull and Mercedes drivers, while Fernando Alonso had his most competitive showing of the season so far in sixth.
Antonio Giovinazzi, fresh from scoring Alfa Romeo’s first point of the year in Monaco, continued his good run of form by classifying seventh.
Lando Norris was the lead McLaren driver in eighth place, with Alpine’s Esteban Ocon and AlphaTauri’s Yuki Tsunoda rounding out the top 10.
Daniel Ricciardo was a low-key 13th but lapped within three-tenths of a second of team-mate Norris.
Problems for Schumacher, Latifi
Williams and Haas occupied their expected positions at the rear of the field and both teams encountered technical setbacks.
Nicholas Latifi suffered an engine issue only five laps into his programme and halted the Williams FW43B on the exit of Turn 15.
The session was briefly red-flagged in order for marshals to remove the stranded car.
Mick Schumacher suffered an oil pressure problem that compromised his run plan and he was able to complete only 12 laps in the session.
Saturday’s third practice session is scheduled for 13:00 local time.
[motorsport_result id=’64811′]
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