Champion Max Verstappen of Red Bull topped the timesheets in the sole practice session for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix on Friday, narrowly beating the Ferrari of Charles Leclerc.
The championship leader clocked 1 minute 42.315 seconds around 6.003-kilometre Baku City Circuit to take the lead in his last flying lap and beat Leclerc by mere 0.037 second. Sergio Perez in the other Red Bull was third.
Friday's practice session will be the only one for the Azerbaijan GP, which will host the first sprint race of the season and under a new format, in which the starting grid for the sprint will be determined by a new standalone qualifying session on Saturday morning.
Friday qualifying, which previously set the grid for the sprint race, will now determine the starting order for Sunday's Grand Prix, as per usual on non-sprint race weekends.
The additional qualifying session on Saturday will be called the 'sprint shootout' and is shorter than the usual format.
Fridays usually see two practice sessions with a third one on Saturdays ahead of qualifying in non-sprint weekends, and the sole session has already proven to be a challenge for the teams.
Alpine will have to work hard to get Pierre Gasly's car ready for qualifying later after it caught fire early into the session. The incident brought out a red flag, which meant teams didn't have a full hour on track.
Haas could also be in trouble after Kevin Magnussen's car had a loss of fuel pressure, while Alpha Tauri's Yuki Tsunoda was left with a lot of damage after hitting the wall and Fernando Alonso had issues with his Aston Martin.
