antonelli Eyes Podium as Teams Navigate Tire Strategy at Azerbaijan Grand Prix - Friday report
Baku, Azerbaijan – kimi Antonelli and the team expressed cautious optimism following Friday practise at the 2025 Azerbaijan Grand Prix, targeting a podium finish while acknowledging strong competition and a unique tire strategy. Antonelli finished FP1 in 11th wiht a 1:43.985 and improved to 4th in FP2 with a 1:41.779.
“We had a pretty positive day out there,” Antonelli stated. “As it’s a street circuit, you want to build up your pace and confidence over several sessions and that is what I was focused on doing. We had a big interruption to FP1 which cost everyone some track running, but the car felt good in FP2 and that put us P4 on the timing screens.There is still work for us to do and improvements for us to find but today was a day we can build on going into the rest of the weekend.”
Antonelli emphasized a realistic outlook, adding, “our realistic aim is to be in the fight for the podium on sunday. McLaren couldn’t show their full pace today and Ferrari looked swift on both the Soft and Medium compounds, so we’re not getting carried away. We opted to only run the Soft tire today and hopefully that helps over the rest of the weekend. It will be tricky adjusting to the other compounds when we first run them but we’re confident that this is the right approach.”
Trackside Engineering Director Andrew Shovlin highlighted the importance of a clean Friday on a street circuit. “With any street circuit,if you get through the program without any damage,it’s normally a solid day. Both drivers did a good job, gradually finding time as the track improved and evolving the setup for the increasing grip. In terms of pace, we look to be in the mix but a good Friday here doesn’t always carry into the rest of the weekend so we can’t take anything for granted.”
The team made a strategic decision to conserve their Medium tires for Saturday and Sunday,anticipating potential performance advantages. “With a C6/C5/C4 tyre allocation here in Azerbaijan, all teams had some tough strategic decisions to take today,” Shovlin explained.”As we saw in both Imola and Montreal with this selection, there was a likelihood that the Medium tyre would be faster over the single lap than the Soft. With a long lap here in Baku where the rears often suffer in the final sector, this possibility looked to increase. We therefore opted to save all of our Mediums for Saturday and Sunday. That will keep our options open for qualifying and the Grand Prix. Hopefully that decision will play out in our favour over the rest of the weekend.”
