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Mercedes made a strong statement of intent for dominance at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix during Thursday's practice sessions on the Baku street circuit. George Russell topped the timesheets in both sessions, with the first non-Mercedes car almost a second adrift by the end of the day (Max Verstappen at 0.827 seconds).
Mercedes is set to introduce its long-awaited W17 upgrade package in Malaysia next week, but even without new parts, rivals were highly impressed by Russell's pace. Red Bull might be running their latest major upgrade package for the RB22 this week, yet Technical Director Pierre Waché admitted he hadn't anticipated such a significant deficit to the factory Mercedes team.
"Yes, I didn't expect such a big gap, mainly on the straights. We then need to analyze if it comes from a tow [or something else]. But yes, we have work to do to achieve what they achieved," Waché stated. "I hope it's smaller, but it looks like they are much faster than us. We'll see what we can do to speed up the car, but if this is the real difference, then it will be tough for us," he added.
Isack Hadjar, who felt physically well upon his return to the cockpit, fears that Mercedes will indeed be out of Red Bull's reach on Friday and Saturday.
"I'm a little [surprised] and I wonder why they are so far ahead. I think it's very impressive. I believe we have a good car, we were in the fight with McLaren and Ferrari, but yes, Mercedes are untouchable," said the Frenchman, who missed the last three races due to injury.
However, Mercedes themselves are not entirely convinced they are a class above the rest. Deputy Team Principal Bradley Lord, who is leading the team this weekend in Toto Wolff's absence, emphasized that his team should by no means celebrate too early.
"Honestly, I don't think it's a representative gap. We did more fast laps on the soft tires in the second practice. Max only had one attempt, as did the McLaren drivers. "We probably shouldn't read too much into it, because with each subsequent fast lap, the times improved. We did one more than everyone else and therefore probably found a bit more in the track and a bit more in the tires than they managed," Lord commented. "George was quite ill here last year and still finished second. So this is a track... I mean, he performs well on every track, but this is one of those where he traditionally has very strong results. "And that's what you look for as a team – if one car has problems, the other one is at the front and leading. He did that today and hopefully he'll continue to do so for the rest of the weekend," Lord added.
When Lord mentioned that "one car has problems," those words logically referred to Kimi Antonelli. The championship leader suffered a hydraulic issue during the first practice session, costing him track time – a factor even more crucial than usual on a street circuit.
"Obviously, that put him at a disadvantage, so he's missing laps and track time, but at the same time, the mechanics did a fantastic job," Lord continued. "The car was back, I think, 15 minutes after practice and was ready to go out just as the red flag came out in the second practice. So they did an epic job to change the engine, take out the old one and put in the new one. "There's no penalty because it's an engine that's already in stock, and yes, we were ready to go. So at least we salvaged as much as we could from the session."
The end result was two Mercedes cars at the top with a significant lead over the rest. This impressed the competition, although Ferrari boss Frédéric Vasseur downplayed the significance of Thursday's times: "I'm getting too old to pay much attention to Friday!"
When it was pointed out to him that it was actually still Thursday, Vasseur concluded with a laugh: "Friday is useless, imagine Thursday!"
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