'Rarely has Mercedes had to come from this far back'

Mercedes headed to Azerbaijan with plenty of positivity, but the first day of the race weekend did not bode well. Valtteri Bottas and Lewis Hamilton finished in the middle of the pack and will have to work hard with the team to get a good qualifying result. However, Lawrence Barretto believes things will work out.

The journalist from the official website of Formula 1 saw that Toto Wolff was having a very hard time with Mercedes' performance. "He did not look like a happy man as he walked out of the garage and up to his hospitality unit after second practice – and who can blame him? He’s not used to seeing his cars one and two seconds, respectively, off the pace."

However, Barretto is confident the Germans will do better on Saturday. "Mercedes have shown time and time again that they can recover from a poor Friday, but rarely have they had to come from this far back. That said, getting into Q3 should still be no problem, and with the race pace they have – on a track where overtaking is possible – they can certainly aim for damage limitation before heading to more favourable tracks."

Verstappen at Azerbaijan GP

Red Bull Racing actually experienced an ideal start to the weekend by setting the two best times in the second free practice session.