Russell tops FP1 in Baku as a smoke scare pulls Antonelli off track, what happened at Turn 7?

Russell opens the weekend with authority

Formula 1 arrived in Baku with an unusual schedule this year, practice on Thursday and qualifying on Friday, and the man who adapted best to that shifted rhythm was George Russell. The Briton closed FP1 with a time of 1:45.387, aided by the soft C5 tyre and a strong tow down the pit straight, and pulled a clear gap over the rest of the field. Four tenths back came Max Verstappen, who went from strength to strength throughout the session: he opened with a 1:49.202, dropped to 1:46.512, and eventually planted a 1:45.787 to secure second.

Behind them, Charles Leclerc put Ferrari firmly in the mix with a 1:45.791, just four thousandths ahead of teammate Lewis Hamilton, who set 1:45.824. A razor thin margin between the two Ferraris that already hints at how tight this Baku weekend could be.

Antonelli’s scare at Turn 7

The headline of the session, though, wasn’t set by anyone at the top of the timesheet. Kimi Antonelli, the championship leader, had been building a promising rhythm with Mercedes when, 25 minutes into the session, his car began losing power before coming to a stop on the Turn 7 escape road. The cause, according to reports, was a hydraulic failure.

The situation created a tense few moments: smoke was seen coming from the car, prompting a Virtual Safety Car period as marshals approached. One of them ended up spraying Antonelli with a fire extinguisher as soon as he climbed out of the cockpit, though there was no indication afterward that an actual fire had broken out. An image more dramatic than the underlying problem turned out to be.

With that 1:46.265 set before the stoppage, Antonelli held onto fifth place, 0.878s off Russell, but lost the entire second half of the session. For Mercedes it’s a double headache: this isn’t the team’s first reliability issue of the season, with Russell having suffered his own mechanical failure in Canada while fighting for the win, plus a stoppage during Monaco qualifying. Antonelli, for what it’s worth, still carries an 81 point championship lead, so a rough Thursday doesn’t change the bigger picture all that much.

Hadjar, back with turbulence

If anyone was hoping for a quiet return, it was Isack Hadjar. After missing three races with a fractured wrist, the Frenchman climbed back into the Red Bull and found a more nervous start than he would have liked: he reported a strange brake pull that, as he described over the radio, nearly sent him into the wall. “Crazy,” he said, before a worse sounding message followed later in the session: “something is really wrong” with the engine, prompting the team to investigate the car on the stands.

It’s not the dream comeback, but it’s not entirely unexpected either. Getting back into a Formula 1 car after weeks away, on a track as demanding as Baku, is never straightforward.

McLaren has its own problems

The team leading the constructors’ championship didn’t have a comfortable FP1 either. Oscar Piastri reported brake vibrations as soon as the session began, and both he and Lando Norris were called into the garage with 20 minutes remaining to check a loose bargeboard. McLaren’s pace in this session was, by their standards, notably subdued: Norris ended up 14th and Piastri 6th.

Add to that Carlos Sainz’s Williams, whose rear right brake caught fire and required extinguishers, and Liam Lawson’s spin, losing the rear entering the first chicane with no consequences beyond a couple of flat spots on the tyres.

A chaotic finish: Hülkenberg and Lindblad both caught out

If the opening of FP1 belonged to Antonelli, the closing minutes belonged to a genuinely messy pile up of stoppages. Inside the final six minutes, Nico Hülkenberg’s Audi suffered a technical problem arriving at Turn 4 and came to a stop on track, triggering another Virtual Safety Car right as the session was winding down. Almost simultaneously, Arvid Lindblad’s Racing Bulls car also came to a stop, at Turn 7, with reports describing a second, near identical VSC trigger inside that same closing window. No wall contact or visible damage has been confirmed for either car in the sources available, so both appear to have been stoppages rather than crashes, though the timing left race control managing two separate incidents within moments of each other.

On top of that, Esteban Ocon also stopped out on track in the dying moments, rounding out one of the more chaotic closing stretches of the season so far.

Despite being unable to get the car back to the garage under its own power, Hülkenberg had already completed most of his planned program and still walked away with the 11th fastest time, just 1.484s off Russell. Lindblad, for his part, ended up 8th, 1.214s back, a solid result for Racing Bulls considering how his session ended.

What the session leaves ahead of the rest of the weekend

With qualifying set for Friday under this reversed schedule, FP1 left more questions than certainties. Russell showed the strongest pace, Verstappen made clear Red Bull won’t give up easily, and Ferrari arrives with both cars glued together on the timesheet. But the image that will stick from Thursday in Baku is a session that opened with Antonelli climbing out of his car through smoke and fire extinguisher spray, and closed with three more cars stopped out on track in the span of a few minutes. A reminder that in today’s Formula 1, reliability still matters just as much as outright pace.

AZERBAIJAN RESULTS – PRACTICE 1

KEY QUOTES

• “I can smell a bit of burning, I think it’s the brakes.” — George Russell
• “Crazy.” — Isack Hadjar, reporting a brake pull that nearly sent him into the wall
• “Something is really wrong.” — Isack Hadjar, reporting an engine issue later in the session

TRIVIA

• The 2026 Azerbaijan Grand Prix runs an unusual Thursday to Saturday schedule, with FP1 and FP2 on Thursday, FP3 and qualifying on Friday, and the race on Saturday.
• Kimi Antonelli’s stoppage happened on the Turn 7 escape road, one of the few genuine runoff areas on the tight and unforgiving Baku City Circuit, the same corner where Lindblad would later stop in the closing minutes.
• Antonelli still holds an 81 point championship lead heading into this weekend, meaning a rough FP1 barely dents his cushion at the top of the standings.
• George Russell set his fastest lap on the soft C5 compound while benefiting from a tow down Baku’s 2.2-kilometre main straight, the longest on the current calendar.
• This marked Isack Hadjar’s first on track session since fracturing his wrist, having missed the previous three Grands Prix.
• Nico Hülkenberg finished FP1 just 1.484s off Russell’s benchmark despite being stranded on track at Turn 4 in the closing minutes, unable to drive the car back to the garage.
• FP1 ended with a genuine cluster of late stoppages: Hülkenberg at Turn 4, Lindblad at Turn 7, and Ocon also parked out on track, all within the session’s final minutes.

Russell looked the class of the field on a chaotic Thursday, but a session that opened with Antonelli’s smoke-filled stoppage and closed with three more cars parked out on track says a lot about how unforgiving Baku can be. Do you think this kind of reliability drama changes anything heading into qualifying, or is it just a bump in the road for the teams involved?

Drop your take in the comments, and tell us who you’re backing to top qualifying in Baku.

Sources: Motorsport.com, GrandePrêmio, GPFans, Autosport, Crash.net, F1oversteer, Formula1.com, RacingNews365