Azerbaijan GP: Ricciardo tops second practice

Baku : A confident and in-form Daniel Ricciardo forecast he will be a strong contender for another victory in this weekend’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix after topping the practice times yesterday.

The big-smiling Australian, who won last year’s race and also the Chinese Grand Prix two weeks ago, was narrowly quickest ahead of Kimi Raikkonen of Ferrari.

He said he felt he had a strong car for Sunday’s race, but feared that his main rivals may be faster in Saturday’s qualifying session.

“But even if we don’t qualify on the front row, we’ll still have a very strong race car,” he said. “We’re still in the group of favourites.”

Ricciardo clocked a best lap time of one minute and 42.795 seconds to outpace Raikkonen by just 0.069 seconds with Red Bull team-mate Max Verstappen third, 0.116 seconds adrift.

Verstappen’s lap was a welcome outcome on another turbulent day which had seen him crash into the barriers during the opening practice in the morning -– after crashes and incidents at all of the three season-opening races.

Valtteri Bottas, who was fastest in the morning session wound up fourth for Mercedes ahead of team-mate and defending four-time world champion Lewis Hamilton and two-time champion Fernando Alonso of McLaren.

Esteban Ocon of Force India was seventh, ahead of Carlos Sainz of Renault, Kevin Magnussen of Haas and Nico Hulkenberg in the second Renault.

World championship leader and four-time champion Sebastian Vettel was only 11th for Ferrari, but said he was not too concerned by his problems.

“It is a tricky circuit, but it is the same for all of us,” said Vettel.

“Probably, I struggle a little bit more than the others, but I am not worried. Towards the end I had a good rhythm and was quite happy so I think we can improve for tomorrow.”