Ferrari's Charles Leclerc was cautious about his chances of winning two Formula 1 races in succession for the first time in his career despite going fastest in the second practice of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix. (More Motorsport News)
Leclerc recovered from a crash in the morning to set the pace in the afternoon, 0.006 seconds ahead of Red Bull's Sergio Perez and 0.066 seconds in front 🔴of Lewis Hamilton of Mercedes.
Championship leader Max Verstappen finished fifth, while his challenger Lando Norris struggled and languished in 17th after the 🔯second classific🍸ation in Baku.
Despite going quickest, Lec❀lerc admitted there were issues with his Ferrari car, leaving work to do if he wants to get pole position in Azerbaijan for a fourth successive year.
He said: "The thing is that when we started FP2 there was a💟n actual problem on the car that we saw later on, once I stopped, and we changed that particular part.
"It's one of the tracks that I quite like, and we've been pretty quick in the past, but that doesn't mean it will be the case for tomorro💞w.
"I mean, the crash, there's not much to go into. I braked a little bit too much on the right, the track was still dirty, I locked up, and it was too late to go to the right [run-of▨f] – so I went into the wall."
Norris endured a far more difficult afternoon, only mustering 17th after coming across Alpine's Pierre Gasly in💛 the final sector whenᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚ attempting his fastest lap.
The Brit cannot afford many slip-ups from now until the end of the season, as he looks to ov𒅌erhaul Verstappen'ﷺs 62-point lead with eight races remaining, but was downbeat about McLaren's chances this weekend, believing they were lagging behind their competitive rivals.
"We're quite a long way off," Norris said.
"I’m having to push way too mu🀅ch to try and get a lap time out of it.
"Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull, they're all very simila🧸r. And the🔯n there's a good 0.3 to 0.4 second gap back to us, so a lot of work to do.
"Ferrari are very quic🐈k here. Mercedes will be quick with these track conditions. It's very💜 slidey out there."
