Russell tops both sessions as Mercedes ends Thursday one-two

George Russell finished first in FP1 and then first again in FP2 in Baku. His 1:43.347 in the afternoon put him more than half a second ahead of Kimi Antonelli and more than eight tenths clear of Max Verstappen. Mercedes therefore ended the opening day with both cars in the top two positions.

The result is even more notable because Antonelli lost a lot of track time. A hydraulic problem stopped his FP1 after around 25 minutes, then Mercedes changed his power unit as a precaution before FP2. Despite that reduced programme, the championship leader still finished second.

Mercedes is refusing to treat the raw gap as the true competitive order. Andrew Shovlin expects the margins to close in qualifying, while Russell says the long-run pace of Mercedes, Red Bull and McLaren is much closer than the timesheet suggests. Mercedes is Thursday’s benchmark; qualifying will show whether the margin is real.