Mercedes refuse to write Max Verstappen off at Azerbaijan GP: 'He only had one quick lap'

In the first free practice, George Russell was the fastest man in Baku. The Mercedes driver was four-tenths quicker than Max Verstappen, who finished P2. Russell flexed his muscles again in the second free practice, while Kimi Antonelli took second place. Verstappen followed in P3, more than eight-tenths behind Russell.

Still, that large gap doesn’t reflect the true pecking order, Lord believes. He also warns about Verstappen, who only completed one fast run. "I don't think it's a representative gap, honestly. We ran more timed laps on the soft tyre in FP2. Max only had one go, so did the McLarens," he said.

Lord thinks there’s still plenty of room for improvement for the other teams. "So probably don't read too much into it because every timed lap he did, the lap times were improving. And, yeah, we did one more than everyone else and therefore probably found a bit more in the track and a bit more in the tyre than they were able to."

Antonelli was plagued by technical issues in the first free practice. The Italian suffered from hydraulic problems. Lord explained what happened to the championship leader. "Obviously, it's put him behind the curve a little bit. So he's just missing laps and missing time out on track, but equally, mega job from the mechanics."

The fact that Antonelli was able to get back out in the second free practice in reasonable time was thanks to the mechanics’ quick work. Toto Wolff's right hand man Lord expressed pride with his crew. "I think the car came back 15 minutes after practice, and it was ready to go just as the red flag came out in FP2," Lord explained.

Red Bull technical director Pierre Wache has said that while the Milton Keynes ought to be satisfied with the RB22's performance during Free Practice action at the Azerbaijan GP, Mercedes' impressive pace has left the team surprised and with "work to do."

"I hope that it's closer, but it looks like they are a lot quicker than us," Wache said. "We will see what we can do to make the car quicker, but, yeah, if it's a real delta, it will be tough for us.