The first day of Formula 1 practice in Baku promised a lot. If you are a fan of Red Bull, Ferrari, McLaren or Mercedes, there are many reasons to believe that this could be your weekend.

This will of course disappoint three groups of fans on Sunday. But for now they can all dream. There are arguments for each of them. So here they are:

Ferrari

Ferrari is traditionally great here, as is Charles Leclerc, so it’s not really surprising that he tops the times in FP2. To do so after such a short time – having crashed in FP1 after setting the fastest time at the time – only strengthens Ferrari’s position even more.

It has always been the best car in slow, sharp, short corners. Hence its dominance in Monaco. There is something in its DNA that makes it extremely agile – a trait it had even back when it was otherwise uncompetitive. In conjunction with this, Ferrari has chosen a very low wing setting, much lower than that of Red Bull or McLaren.

Even before the DRS zone on the main straight, Leclerc was 10 km/h faster than Max Verstappen’s Red Bull on their respective fastest laps. The Red Bull’s persistent strong DRS boost makes up for some of that deficit in the DRS zone and it is generally faster in the tight corners. The point is, however, that despite the smaller wing, the Ferrari is still competitive due to its great agility in the slow corners.

Leclerc’s driving style and the delay caused by the rebuilding error after his accident meant that he was much later than the others in his qualifying simulation, taking advantage of the grippier track, so we should take his fastest time with a pinch of salt. The other potential cloud on Ferrari’s horizon is how the low wing setting will affect relative race pace.

FP2 – Long runs

Given the relatively limited number of laps you can do in the racing simulator on a Friday, the picture of tyre wear is not clear, but it is very encouraging that Carlos Sainz was faster than everyone else on the medium C4 tyre (albeit by a tiny margin).

“It’s very close,” said Leclerc, “but it’s also very difficult to see because everyone has a different engine mode. It’s one of the tracks that I like a lot and we’ve been quite fast in the past, but that doesn’t mean it will be the same tomorrow. We still need to work on the car, there’s a lot to do to improve. The driving still needs to improve a little bit because I still took my references a little bit in FP2, but we’re fast again. That’s a good thing and hopefully there’s more to come tomorrow.”

RedBull

Red Bull is back in the game here. The RB20 is a far more competitive car than it was at Monza. How much of this is down to the revised underbody and diffuser and how much to the track characteristics is unclear, but what it does have in common with the Ferrari is its ability to handle short corners.

In addition, the range of cornering speeds here is relatively small, so the car’s innate difficulty in achieving a usable balance window between low and high speed is not so much of a hindrance.

Sergio Perez has actually led the team, while Verstappen has focused on ironing out high-acceleration understeer. “Yes, but it’s also the track,” says Verstappen. “It’s very slippery, a lot of 90-degree corners. So when you have a small corner, sometimes you just have to keep the brake down to avoid hitting the wall or whatever, just out of caution… so we just need to work a bit more on the balance and then I’m pretty confident we can be competitive.”

However, this all happens in very high grip conditions, meaning the car is fast even in this condition. The team is using the relatively large wing it ran at Spa, but the beam wing has been shortened considerably for this use.

Perez loves this place and had the edge over Verstappen here last year. With a few more tweaks in the Verstappen garage, there is every reason to believe that both Red Bulls will be fighting for pole – and from there on, their relatively large wing will be a valuable tyre differential plus.

Mercedes

A difficult day for the team as George Russell missed much of the second session as his car underwent a precautionary drivetrain change. Russell admitted his lack of mileage affected his confidence at this point and he struggled to get the tyres into the right temperature window.

But every time Lewis Hamilton was on the track with the soft tires, he fought for the fastest time.

Hamilton was fastest on the long runs – but he was the only one who managed this on the hard tyre, which seems to have an advantage over the medium in racing. Mercedes is definitely in the same range and in terms of the chosen wing height somewhere between Ferrari and Red Bull.

McLaren

McLaren traditionally runs a conservative programme on Friday and Lando Norris’ qualifying sim lap was thwarted by Pierre Gasly, who tried to get out of the way but had a battery problem in the Alpine that made life difficult for him.

So one should not read too much into the headlines that only put Oscar Piastri and Norris in 5th and 17th place.^th.

But still. This doesn’t look like as strong a performance from the team as usual. The car’s advantage usually increases the longer the corner is – so Baku isn’t playing to its strengths. On Friday it was more competitive than “the fastest car in Formula 1”. But with the right decisions and a coordinated qualifying performance, that could all change.

“I think it was a good day,” said Piastri. “It’s hard to say at the moment because the course is still evolving so much, but the pace seems to be in the green… I think all four top teams are looking good at the moment. Our long runs seemed pretty competitive.”

“Some guys were able to put in some long laps (in the qualifying simulation) and when you combine that, it really makes a big difference. That’s what it’s all about tomorrow.”

That and the tow, which is worth a lot here if coordinated properly. This is where Piastri could be used to provide valuable assistance to his teammate.