Hamilton completes practice clean sweep as Mercedes dominate

Lewis Hamilton topped the final practice session in Baku on Saturday, ahead of the first qualifying session on the new circuit.

He posted his time of 1m44.352s with less than a minute to go in FP3, surpassing team-mate Nico Rosberg's time by just over a quarter of a second.

The two Haas cars were first out on track in the hour-long session, and were swiftly followed by the majority of the grid, with acclimatisation to the new circuit crucial before the first qualifying session in Baku later in the day.

The session began under bizarre circumstances, when the cover of a wiring tunnel in the pit lane came loose and damaged the sidepod and bargeboard of Valtteri Bottas' car, causing damage that would eventually rule him out of the rest of the session.

RelatedPosts

How the Austrian GP cemented F1 2025 as a two-horse race

13 hours ago

Toto Wolff: Kimi Antonelli’s ‘unfortunate’ Austria F1 error ‘can happen to the greats’

14 hours ago

Williams' luck did not improve, as Felipe Massa hit the wall twenty minutes in at exactly the same place as Daniel Ricciardo did on Friday morning. The car was not heavily-damaged, but he returned to the pits immediately.

Bottas was not the only Finn who ran into trouble, with Kimi Raikkonen's session blighted by an engine issue, causing his car to be examined and worked upon during the second half of the session.

With an ultra high-speed final sector and a twisty first two, Mercedes and Red Bull both suited different parts of the track, and this was reflected in the times. Daniel Ricciardo set the early pace, but Nico Rosberg eclipsed it with half an hour gone in the session.

He was then followed by team-mate Lewis Hamilton, and Sebastian Vettel soon pipped former colleague Ricciardo to go third-fastest.

Times didn't change too much towards the end of the session, with consistency the clear aim for most.

However, the last few minutes were packed with action. First, Nico Hulkenberg put his Force India second-best with just a few minutes to go – albeit almost a full second off the other Nico's time.

Then, Lewis Hamilton pipped Rosberg's time by a quarter of a session to go fastest. As the clock ticked to zero, Segio Perez hit the wall on the exit of turn 15, giving Force India virtually no time to prepare the car for qualifying.