DLSTR

Why Mercedes' "worst Friday" leaves it behind Alfa in Baku so far, as Red Bulls run riot
By:
Alex Kalinauckas
Jun 4, 2021, 1:43 PM
As Red Bull looked in dominant form during Friday practice for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix on Friday, title rival Mercedes was left with a lot of head scratching to do after finding itself behind a number of other teams on one-lap pace - which could have big ramifications come raceday.



The 2021 Formula 1 title fight is a two-horse race between Red Bull and Mercedes, with the former leading the way by one point in the constructors’ championship after the opening five rounds of the campaign.

But after two practice sessions for this year’s 2021 Azerbaijan Grand Prix in the centre of Baku, there are five other teams currently nestled between F1’s usual frontrunners: Ferrari, AlphaTauri, Alpine, Alfa Romeo and McLaren.

This is in terms of the overall pecking order (below). Things are inevitably closer when delving into the murky realm of long-run averages, and all the typical practice caveats about engine modes and fuel levels of course apply. But if the Friday one-lap form bears through in qualifying tomorrow, then Mercedes is in trouble, no matter how good its race pace turns out to be.
FP2 overall order
Pos Driver Team Time Gap
1 Perez Red Bull 1m42.115s
2 Sainz Ferrari 1m42.216s +0.128s
3 Gasly AlphaTauri 1m42.534s +0.419s
4 Alonso Alpine 1m42.693s +0.578s
5 Giovinazzi Alfa Romeo 1m42.941s +0.826s
6 Norris McLaren 1m43.018s +0.903s
7 Hamilton Mercedes 1m43.156 +1.041s
8 Stroll Aston Martin 1m43.812s +1.697s
9 Russell Williams 1m44.557s +2.442s
10 Mazepin Haas 1m45.563s +3.448s

Sergio Perez led Max Verstappen in FP2, after the Dutchman had topped the times in the opening practice session earlier on Friday afternoon. Given FP2 began at the same time as the race will on Sunday – 4pm local time and in slightly lower temperatures compared to FP1 – the order from that session is what matters heading into the rest of the weekend.

Mercedes’ FP2 result was 11th for Lewis Hamilton and a rather shocking P16 for Valtteri Bottas. No wonder the team’s trackside engineering director, Andrew Shovlin, reckons “we clearly have an awful lot to find”.

Those lowly positions and Hamilton’s personal best of 1m43.156s – which ended up being 1.041s slower than Perez’s fastest time, a 1m42.115s – might’ve been better had it not been for Charles Leclerc’s second crash in less than a fortnight.

The Ferrari driver locked up heavily at the Turn 15 fast left that leads the track down the hill towards the start of the third sector and the main straight, and he went straight on into the barriers on the outside. Unlike in qualifying at his home event last time out, the damage was essentially superficial, with just the front wing knocked off the SF21.

But it meant that most of the drivers running behind him had their FP2 qualifying simulation efforts disrupted by the yellow flags flying for the incident or the virtual safety car that soon followed.

"We’re definitely quite a chunk down. Everyone will be scratching their heads trying to figure out and looking into the data to try and figure out how we can improve" Lewis Hamilton

Perez was able to clinch FP2’s best time on his second run of the softs after things had cleared up, gaining over half a second compared to his first flying lap, but Mercedes only saw Hamilton having a good first sector on his first timed lap before he came upon Leclerc’s incident and he wasn’t able to recreate that speed once the drivers were allowed back to full speed.

Something strange is happening at Mercedes, as Hamilton suggested after climbing from his car following the day’s second session. Things feel fast for the drivers, but that’s not being transferred across to the timesheets.

“Honestly I generally had a really good day,” said the world champion. “I mean, it feels clean, I got all the laps that we needed, there was not really any mistakes.

“In general, I feel like I’m driving well. The car felt better in FP1, in [FP2] there was just no more time in it. So yeah, we’re definitely quite a chunk down. Everyone will be scratching their heads trying to figure out and looking into the data to try and figure out how we can improve.”

The problem for both Mercedes drivers is a lack of grip all around, with the team particularly lacking pace in Baku’s more technical second sector.

Data seen by Autosport shows that Hamilton was losing time to Perez – and Carlos Sainz Jr, who ended FP2 in third for Ferrari – from the Turn 3 90-degree left onwards on their respective fastest laps in the middle sector. Hamilton ended up again with the 11th fastest time in the field in the second sector overall during FP2, while Bottas was, also again, in P16. Hamilton was losing over half a second to Verstappen (just 0.101s slower than Perez overall in FP2 and the quickest driver through this part of the lap) in this sector alone.

The lower temperatures in the second session were likely exacerbating things, as evidenced by Hamilton falling back from seventh in FP1, but Autosport understands that Mercedes cannot conclusively show it is suffering from the tyre warm-up problems that have struck at various points in 2021 so far. For Hamilton, his biggest struggle with this issue came last time out in Monaco.

But the data we have seen paints a different picture when it comes to the long runs, and this is both good and bad for Mercedes.

When Hamilton was running the medium tyres on his long run at the end of FP2, he was closely tracking Red Bull’s pace on the softs after three laps and was still there after eight laps. This means Mercedes race pace is strong, but also indicates that the tyre warm-up problem it has endured elsewhere is indeed occurring to some extent – even if the team can’t be totally sure of that right now.

The grip problem is apparently impacting both the front and rear ends of the W12, with the car sliding around a lot.


While Hamilton felt things were marginally worse in FP2 compared to the opening session, Bottas struggled in both – as he ended up 10th in FP1. Although it must be said that he too lost the best laps of his soft-tyre qualifying-sim effort to the disruption caused by Leclerc’s shunt.

Bottas complained about his rear mediums being grained “pretty badly” by the end of his long run late in FP2, but this is understood to be a result of his trip to the Turn 1 run-off (there were plenty of cars sliding off around the course throughout the day) and the way he lit up the rears getting back to facing the right away again.

"Overall, not an easy day with lots of work to do - I think it's going to be a long night" Valtteri Bottas

“It was very tricky for us today,” said Bottas. “We are clearly lacking pace and it feels like we're missing overall grip and sliding around.

“Monaco wasn't easy but at least we were more or less there for qualifying. It's been more of a challenging day than we anticipated, and we need to figure out why. We were slightly better on the long runs but we're still lacking pace. So, overall, not an easy day with lots of work to do - I think it's going to be a long night.”

In an effort to address its issues in Baku today, Mercedes has a “comprehensive programme of analysis and simulator work”, per Shovlin, planned for the night ahead. The team has looked off the pace in Friday practice on many occasions in the last few years, but its drivers have rarely finished so far down the overall order.

Team insiders insist it is not bluffing and that it really has its work cut out to understand the problems and work and then implement a fix. If it nails this, then it can recover from “our worst Friday by some margin” – according to Shovlin.
The Mercedes team on the pit wall

“Our biggest issue seemed to be the single lap; we're a long way from our normal positions so clearly we need to find something very significant there,” he added. “The long run picture was not as bad – a fair bit behind Red Bull but still in the mix. So, lots to work on overnight.”

Ferrari’s place in the overall order grabs attention given it seems to have largely transferred its Monaco pace – despite Leclerc insisting that situation in his home city was “a one-off” when speaking ahead of Baku practice beginning.

There’s good and bad news here, though. The slim rear wing the team is using to try and overcome its enduring power deficit on the track’s long straights is helping it keep pace in the speed trap – where most of the teams (when no DRS or tow were in play) were averaging around 193mph – and set very competitive times over one lap.

But Ferrari is really suffering in the long runs, where Leclerc (fourth in FP2 despite his crash) was apparently soon lapping around three-seconds slower than Hamilton when they ran comparable stints on the same compound, the mediums during the long-run data gathering.

Autosport understands that Ferrari was tracked running in a similar engine mode power setting to Red Bull today. During their best laps in FP2, Perez was seemingly gaining on Sainz at the 90-degree lefts of Turns 2/3 and carrying more speed through the tight and twisty section around Baku’s castle.

Ferrari’s task heading into final practice and qualifying is almost the exact opposite of Mercedes’ equivalent: it needs to keep its one lap pace and dramatically improve over longer runs.



But at the head of the field, on both ultimate pace and apparently over a race stint, is the championship leading squad. While it was pulling no punches in the good old off-track political fun, with the flexi-wing saga rumbling on, Red Bull looked serene in Friday practice.

Watching at the outside of the first corner in FP1, Autosport observed just how relentlessly consistent Verstappen could be when hitting the apex of the left-hander inch-perfect every time through, just kissing the white line running around the kerb. The RB16B looked effortlessly planted from the off.

"I think this is the best Friday of this season, the most complete Friday in terms of data, in terms of how comfortable I feel with the car" Sergio Perez

But while that is inevitably good for Verstappen, who heads into the weekend with a four-point lead over Hamilton in the drivers’ standings, the final word – for now – should go to Perez, who feels he is now gelling with his new team’s package in a way he has not been able to do consistently at 2021’s previous rounds.

“Today it was like, 'well, I finally understand this car a bit more', how I need to drive it and so on,” he explained after FP2.

“So, in that regard, I think this is the best Friday of this season, the most complete Friday in terms of data, in terms of how comfortable I feel with the car. I think we are definitely going to be in the mix.”