Fittipaldi fastest in slippery F2 practice in Baku

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

Enzo Fittipaldi posted the fastest time in an interrupted Formula 2 practice session on a slippery Baku street circuit.

For the first session on track in any category this weekend, the drivers were faced with a greasy and dirty track, with fresh rain added to the mix later on. Fittipaldi’s best time of 1m58.244s was more than four seconds off that set by Ollie Bearman in the same session in 2023.

Victor Martins was an early pacesetter before Andrea Kimi Antonelli took top spot with half an hour to go. Fittipaldi became the first driver to go below the two-minute mark, and although Kush Maini briefly beat his time, the Van Amersfoort Racing driver would reclaim first soon afterwards.

Light rain began to fall as the session headed into its final 20 minutes, and would lead to limited running thereafter. Pepe Marti became the first to get caught out when he spun in Turn 5 and stalled, causing a red flag.

Teams were reluctant to send their drivers out when the session resumed, and with seven minutes to go another red flag was caused when Oliver Goethe went straight into the barriers at Turn 15. Less than a minute remained when the session restarted once more, though the remainder of the field did return to the track to undertake practice starts.

It was a tricky session for debutants Gabriele Mini, Luke Browning and Christian Mansell to get to grips with the F2 car for the first time. Both Mini and Browning had moments in the final sector early on before Mansell ran straight on into the Turn 2 run-off area.

Mini ended up sixth fastest though in the Prema car usually driven by Bearman, with Mansell just two places behind after taking over from Roman Stanek at Trident. Browning was 14th for ART Grand Prix.

Free practice results