Lap times 1st free practice 2019 Azerbaijan F1 GP
Main Straight Baku Street Circuit (2019)
Event: Azerbaijan Grand Prix
Track: Baku street circuit
Weather: 16.5°C sunny & dry
Tarmac: 40.0°C dry
Humidity: 67.9%
Wind: 1.8 m//s
Pressure: 1026.6 bar
This first practice session for the 2019 Azerbaijan GP Romain Grosjean was the first who drove onto the track to start testing in the Haas VF-19.
Ferrari has brought a new back wing upgrade that's much larger than the other teams have. It will give them a lot more downforce on the back of the car in the slow corners of the Baku street circuit. Charles Leclerc clocked the first lap time with a 1:49.134 min on the yellow tyres.
15 minutes into the session the session was red flagged and stopped because a manhole cover was sucked loose by the Williams of George Russel and damaged the complete floor of the FW42.
The impact was so severe that his fire extinguisher had gone off. The bad luck of Williams wasn't over still. The recovery vehicle that brought back the damaged car of George Russel hit a bridge with the crane and leaked hydraulic oil onto the car.
The session wasn't restarted and cancelled to check if all other 320 man hole covers around the street circuit are fixed well enough.
The quickest lap time of last years FP1 in Azerbaijan was 1:44.242 min, set by Valtteri Bottas with the Mercedes W09.
FP1 Lap Times 2019 Azerbaijan GP
| Pos | No | Driver | Team | Lap Time | 1st Gap | Laps |
| 1 | 16 | Charles Leclerc | Ferrari | 1:47.497 | 5 | |
| 2 | 5 | Sebastian Vettel | Ferrari | 1:49.598 | +2.101s | 4 |
| 3 | 8 | Romain Grosjean | Haas | no time | - | 1 |
| 4 | 4 | Lando Norris | McLaren | no time | - | 1 |
| 5 | 33 | Max Verstappen | Red Bull | no time | - | 1 |
| 6 | 20 | Kevin Magnussen | Haas | no time | - | 1 |
| 7 | 55 | Carlos Sainz | McLaren | no time | - | 1 |
| 8 | 99 | Antonio Giovinazzi | Alfa Romeo | no time | - | 1 |
| 9 | 26 | Daniil Kvyat | Toro Rosso | no time | - | 1 |
| 10 | 88 | Robert Kubica | Williams | no time | - | 1 |
| 11 | 63 | George Russell | Williams | no time | - | 3 |
| 12 | 23 | Alex Albon | Toro Rosso | no time | - | 1 |
| 13 | 3 | Daniel Ricciardo | Renault | no time | - | 1 |
| 14 | 27 | Nico Hülkenberg | Renault | no time | - | 1 |
| 15 | 10 | Pierre Gasly | Red Bull | no time | - | 1 |
| 16 | 7 | Kimi Räikkönen | Alfa Romeo | no time | - | 1 |
| 17 | 11 | Sergio Pérez | Racing Point | no time | - | 1 |
| 18 | 18 | Lance Stroll | Racing Point | no time | - | 1 |
| 19 | 44 | Lewis Hamilton | Mercedes | no time | - | 0 |
| 20 | 77 | Valtteri Bottas | Mercedes | no time | - | 0 |
Here you can see the collision of George Russel's Williams with the man hole cover:
https://twitter.com/F1/status/1121716968057393153
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Everything on the track should have been well and truly checked long before the cars arrived. a man hole cover cost Ruben Barachello points at Monaco many years ago. poor Williams.
This is poor preparation by the circuit promoters but unacceptable for the F1 officials who should be checking that standards are appropriate for F1. Jon Todt what is going on?
Danny Ric commenting that he doesn't do circuit walks and now a circuit that is clearly not ready for F1. This is looking like ameture hour people. Are you looking for a few deaths before you take circuit preparation seriously
I concur with the other statements on the debacle. Everybody directly involved in circuit safety should be ashamed of what happened. Surely they should lose the license for this , the world must know and see proof of that in F1 safety comes first above all else. This was criminal negligence. Still we know that Bernie is not worried.
Should this have occured in race time a fatality risk would have been very high.Thankfully a large amount of money can help williams recover,and nobody hurt.Who so ever is responsible,should be SACKED.
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