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Sergio Perez is the Formula 1 master of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix. Not only he has now become the only driver to win in Baku more than once ('two-and-a-half times' as he pointed out with the sprint win), it was an expected win. Such was Red Bull's pace advantage over the field, it was accepted that pole-man Charles Leclerc would be quickly dispensed with and a straight fight between Perez and Max Verstappen. Yes, the Mexican was lucky with the timing of the Safety Car, everyone gets a bit here and there after all, but he also pulled out nearly three seconds over the World Champion. This was Perez's day - and now just six points behind Verstappen, the question is can he really challenge for the championship? Viewed by others: FIA Stewards issue verdict after scary Ocon pit incident review ...

Lewis Hamilton believes that the new Sprint format introduced at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix could have featured more track time. The first-ever Sprint Shootout replaced Free Practice 2 on Saturday morning, with the session deciding the grid for the Sprint later in the day. With the Shootout taking place at 12:30 local time, there was a gap in the action until the Sprint was held at 17:30 local time, and Hamilton feels that this could have allowed for an extra session. "There was four hours waiting between sessions today," Hamilton told media, including TheFOXposts.Com , after the Sprint in Baku. "I think today we could have done at least three sessions. "I don't know if that's possible." However, when asked about the tyre allocation used during the Sprint Shootout – where drivers use one set of Mediums for each of the first two Shootout sessions, followed by the Softs for the final session – Hamilton sounded a positive note. "P...

The one-hour afternoon session at Jerez saw little in the way of overall lap time improvements until the closing stages, when FP2 exploded into a frantic time attack. Espargaro was the best of the bunch with a 1m36.708s from Aprilia team-mate Maverick Vinales, while FP1 pacesetter Dani Pedrosa was third overall. As disastrous afternoon for last year’s Spanish GP winner Bagnaia, Quartararo – who has four Jerez MotoGP poles to his name – and championship leader Marco Bezzecchi saw all three fail to get into the top 10 and will face a volatile Q1 session on Saturday morning. At least one of those riders will start both the sprint and the grand prix from the fifth row at best. After half an hour of running in FP2, only Marc Marquez’s injury stand-in Iker Lecuona had made an gains on their FP1 best. But Lecuona remained last on the timesheets and suffered a crash 12 minutes into the hour-long session at the final corner. This would eventually bring the red flag out 10 minutes l...