Red Bull leads opening practice at Baku

F1 Grand Prix, GP Azerbaijan, Baku Street Circuit

Red Bull Racing's Max Verstappen topped the first practice session for the Azerbaijani Grand Prix, lapping the street track of Baku nearly half a second faster than his team mate. Sebastian Vettel was third fastest in the Ferrari despite not using Pirelli's super soft tyres.

A tenth down on Ricciardo, Vettel went off onto the escape road at Turn 3 and 8 and retained the soft tyre while most other drivers opted to have their fastest outings on the super softs, the softed compound available at Baku for this weekend.

Just when both Red Bulls had jumped to the top of the timesheets, Sergio Perez slammed the wall at the right Turn 8, having been a little bit too eager on the kerbs on the left hand side. Moments before that, Perez had set his fastest time of the session, and looked set to target further improvements.

The damage to the right hand side of the Force India was such that it took 14 minutes to clear the car and all the debris, leaving just 5 minutes on the clock for anybody else to improve on their laptimes.

Nothing much materialised in the final moment, leaving Hamilton slightly frustrated as his attempts on the super softs were hampered by traffic. He was still 3 tenths fastest than team mate Valtteri Bottas, while Esteban Ocon acquinted himself with the track well enough to go 7th fastest.

Felipe Massa, who topped the times early in the session was 8th fastest, ahead of Raikkonen and Kvyat who completed the top 10.