Azerbaijan GP FP3 2026: Verstappen fastest, Stroll crashes and qualifying is set up red-hot

Verstappen steps to the front right when it matters

After two days of practice dominated almost entirely by Mercedes, Friday’s FP3 in Baku brought a change of script, contested under wind that gave the entire field trouble: gusts above 30mph, felt especially hard through the circuit’s fast section, a sharp contrast to Thursday’s calmer conditions. Max Verstappen set the session’s fastest time with a 1:43.922, just a tenth clear of George Russell, who had topped both FP1 and FP2 on Thursday and now had to settle for second, 0.099s back. Lewis Hamilton completed the session’s podium with a 1:44.033, just 0.111s off the top, while Kimi Antonelli ended up fourth at 0.351s, leaving the two Mercedes cars split by Ferrari and Red Bull on the timesheet.

What stands out is that Verstappen set that time on a single run of soft tyres, without needing to push especially hard, suggesting Red Bull arrives at qualifying with more margin than it had in the two previous sessions. Charles Leclerc rounded out the top five at 0.622s, followed by Pierre Gasly, Oscar Piastri, Lando Norris and Isack Hadjar, who continues logging laps following his return from a wrist injury.

Verstappen’s frustration that didn’t stop him from topping the times

The curious part of the session is that Verstappen himself wasn’t entirely happy with his car despite the result. Beyond running wide at Turn 15, where he clipped the wall without major consequences, he described his RB22 as feeling “numb” through Turn 16, on top of the now familiar radio line that sums up the weekend’s frustration pretty well: “If for once this f***ing car wouldn’t jump like a kangaroo, my god!” Between the wind, the brush with the wall and the handling complaints, it’s clear that, scoreboard aside, Red Bull still has setup work to do before the afternoon’s qualifying session.

Hamilton, for his part, had a lockup at Turn 1 that didn’t stop him from sneaking into the top three, showing that Ferrari also arrives with a genuine case to fight for the front of the grid. McLaren had its own scare too, with Lando Norris reporting a brake issue that forced the team into a quick mid-session repair.

Stroll’s scare at Turn 1

The other headline of the morning was Lance Stroll, and not for good reasons. The Canadian clipped the inside wall at Turn 1, a hit that gave him a puncture and, according to some reports, also affected his Aston Martin’s steering. The team judged it unsafe to try to bring the car back to the garage, so Stroll ended up stopping out on track, which triggered yellow flags at the halfway point of the session while the situation was resolved. Replays showed the contact with the wall clearly, a graze that on a track as narrow as Baku can turn from a simple scare into a serious problem within a matter of metres.

With no more running left for him in the session, Stroll ended up at the bottom of the timesheet, 5.357s off the pace, having completed just 9 laps. For Aston Martin, already carrying mechanical doubts from Thursday with Fernando Alonso, it’s one more morning to forget ahead of a weekend that’s shaping up to be an uphill battle.

What the session leaves ahead of qualifying

With all three practice sessions now complete, the picture in Baku looks far more competitive than Thursday’s Mercedes dominance suggested. Verstappen showed Red Bull can fight for pole despite the driver’s own complaints, Russell and Antonelli keep Mercedes as a constant reference point, and Ferrari, with Hamilton in the top three, arrives with real margin to dream about the front row.

Qualifying is scheduled for this afternoon at 1:00pm Baku time, in a weekend that carries one extra wrinkle: because of Remembrance Day in Azerbaijan, the entire schedule shifted forward by a day, so the race will run on Saturday at 12:00pm instead of the usual Sunday slot. With Stroll’s steering needing inspection and several teams still fine-tuning details, the fight for pole looks set to be far more open than FP3’s result alone might suggest.

KEY QUOTES

“If for once this f***ing car wouldn’t jump like a kangaroo, my god!” — Max Verstappen, after running wide at Turn 15

Replays showed Stroll made contact with the Turn 1 wall, giving him a puncture and forcing the car to stop out on track, triggering yellow flags at the halfway point of the session

WEEKEND CHRONOLOGY

Thursday, FP1: George Russell leads with 1:45.387; Kimi Antonelli suffers a hydraulic failure and stops at Turn 7 amid smoke and a Virtual Safety Car.

Thursday, FP2: Russell completes the day’s sweep with 1:43.347; Arvid Lindblad hits the wall twice in the castle section and triggers a red flag; Lewis Hamilton receives a reprimand for not yielding to Liam Lawson.

Friday, FP3: Max Verstappen takes over with 1:43.922, ending Mercedes’ run, under strong wind conditions; Lance Stroll clips the Turn 1 wall, picks up a puncture and stops the car on track.

Friday, later: qualifying at 1:00pm local time, with the race moved to Saturday due to Remembrance Day in Azerbaijan.

AZERBAIJAN RESULTS – PRACTICE 3

Verstappen finally looked like himself in Baku, even while cursing his own car over the radio, and Stroll’s Turn 1 contact adds one more unknown heading into qualifying. Do you think Red Bull can turn this practice pace into a genuine pole fight this afternoon?

Drop your prediction in the comments, and share this one with a fellow fan before qualifying gets underway.

Source: Formula1.com, Autosport, Inkl, Crash.net, PlanetF1, GPBlog, F1oversteer