It has not been Lewis Hamilton's weekend so far. In the first free practice, the Mercedes driver was still very much in the mix with a sixth place, but the Briton is slipping further and further down the timesheets throughout the weekend. VT3 ended in twelfth place, 1.6 seconds behind Sergio Perez.

Mercedes engine Hamilton scaled back

The low point in Azerbaijan was reached for Hamilton during the third free practice session. The seven-time world champion was at the bottom of the timesheet for almost the entire session, although he managed to squeeze out a twelfth time in the end. The worst news, however, came from the pit wall. During VT3, Hamilton comes out on the board radio frustrated with his speed: "Have you screwed my engine back up?" Confirmation came from his race engineer Peter 'Bono' Bonnington. "Right, we have a limited mileage left."

What this will mean for qualifying and the race remains to be seen, but it is clear that things are not going well at Mercedes. The German team's once superior engine has completely lost that edge over the other teams. George Russell did slightly better than Hamilton with an eighth place, but it is unclear whether his engine has been downsized or not.