Renault Sport Formula One Team drivers Nico Hülkenberg and Jolyon Palmer ended the first day of practice for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix just 0.058secs apart with Nico posting the fifteenth and Jolyon the sixteenth fastest times on the Baku City Circuit.

Jolyon Palmer, #30, R.S.17-03

Free practice 1: P18, 1:48.525, 15 laps
Free practice 2: P16, 1:46.061, 17 laps

Jo: “It was pretty slippery out there and we struggled to get grip from the tyres. The car was feeling better in FP2 but I was caught out at turn eight which ended my day early. We had made progress between FP1 and FP2 and there’s more we can make for tomorrow. Thankfully there’s not too much damage to the car, so we’ll look to get it where we want it to be for qualifying.”

Bob Bell, Chief Technical Officer: “The first session went reasonably smoothly, but the evening session was dominated by a number of yellow flag incidents which affected our run programme. Jolyon had an early bath, however we did get a long run with Nico in the car so there’s sufficient data for race strategy decisions and Jolyon’s car won’t require too much work, so no big dramas.”