After teammate and Max Verstappen led the way in the opening session, it was Perez’s turn to set the pace i🍃n FP2 as he edged out the new championship lea🐎der by 0.101s around the Baku City Circuit.

It was a difficult afternoon for reigning world champions Mercedes, with neither Lewis Hamilton or ꧃Valtteri Bottas featuring inside the top 10 as both dr🤡ivers struggled with tyre warm-up issues.

Having been unable to set a competitive lap time on🐻 the Soft tyres, Hamilton ended up a lowly 11th, over a second down on Perez’s benchmark.

Things were even w🌼orse for teammate Bottas, who took a pair of trips down the T𒆙urn 1 escape road on his way to finishing two seconds off the pace in 16th.

In contrast, Ferrari enjoyed another encouraging hour of prac✃tice as Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc once again looked to be Red Bull’s closest challengers on Friday, with Sainz just 0.128s behind Perez.

Leclerc was a further two tenths behind his teammate but had been🌺 on a quicker lap before hitting the barriers at Turn 15 followi♑ng a lock up.

The Monegasque, who crashed out of Baku qualifying in 2019, was able to reverse out of the tyre walꦇl minus a front wing as he limped back to the gara❀ge.

Pierre Gaslജy managed the fifth-fastest time in his AlphaTauri, ahead of Alpine’s Fernando Alonso and Antonio Giovinazzi, who produced an eye-catching lap to sit seventh for Alfa Romeo.

Lando Norris, Esteban Ocon 𒐪and Yuki Tsunoda completed the rest of the top-10 o♕rder for McLaren, Alpine and AlphaTauri.

Williams driver Nicholas Latifi managed just five laps before he caused a red flag sto🦋ppage when his car shut down on the exit of Turꦕn 15.

The Canadian had just reversed out of the e🌄scape road after a mistake but his Williams engine conked out as he tried to pull away.

Click here for full results from second practice at the 2021 F1 Azerbaijan Grand Prix.