The cars are lining up in the pit lane to get out on to the circuit and the session will resume in one minute.

Ocon stops on trackpublished at 09:52 British Summer Time 14 September

09:52 BST 14 September

The weekend in Baku is turning out to be a difficult one for Alpine. The marshals have arrived on the scene and are pushing the car to a safe spot away from the action.

Over at Mercedes, the Silver Arrows are ready to release Lewis Hamilton and George Russell when the red flag is lifted.

Ben Edwards
F1 commentator on BBC Radio 5 Sports Extra

We just saw a graphic about average fastest start reaction time and Hamilton was at the top of that, 0.26 seconds off the line at the start of the race.

Postpublished at 09:48 British Summer Time 14 September

09:48 BST 14 September

Esteban Ocon is safely climbing out of the car and walking away. His Alpine, which also experienced issues during yesterday's practice, crawled along before finally coming to a stop just before the start-finish straight.

"I've got a problem."

"I don't think I can make it."

Problems for Oconpublished at 09:46 British Summer Time 14 September

09:46 BST 14 September

The risk of rain is 30% for third practice, according to race control, and the clouds do look slightly grey above the Azerbaijan circuit.

There is a yellow flag waving in the final sector. it's for Esteban Oconm who has come to a stop in the Alpine.

Ben Edwards
F1 commentator on BBC Radio 5 Sports Extra

Nobody is putting together laps because the conditions out there are just not what they want, they want a dry track.

Image source, Getty Images

F1 design great Adrian Newey was unveiled to much fanfare by Aston Martin at their Silverstone base on Tuesday and if the 65-year-old was following along with first practice yesterday, he would have received some valuable feedback he can add to his fabled notebook from Lance Stroll.

The Canadian wasted no time jumping on the team radio on Friday to tell his pit wall: "This is not a car, this is not a car right now", while voicing his unhappiness with the balance of his 2024 Aston Martin.

The track isn't exactly a hive of activity yet, with just RB's Yuki Tsunoda, Valtteri Bottas in his Sauber and the two Aston Martins of Lance Stroll and Fernando Alonso taking in the some early running.

Tsunoda heads back into the pits and tags his team-mate Daniel Ricciardo in to the ring on a set of hard tyres.

Ben Edwards
F1 commentator on BBC Radio 5 Sports Extra

Most of the cars are still in the pits, I think the dampness that Perez reported to his team has meant there is a bit of a delay. Not many cars are going out, it's pretty quiet out there.

The softest tyres in the Pirelli range are on display for the second race weekend in a row.

Drivers will get two sets of the hards (C3, white), three sets of mediums (C4, yellow), and eight sets of the soft compound (C4, red). The risk of rain is low in Baku but the green intermediates and blue full wets are here on standby, should the heavens unexpectedly open.

On Friday, Charles Leclerc clocked the quickest times on both the medium (1:44.202) and the soft tyre (1:43.484), while Lewis Hamilton did some laps on the hard compound in his Mercedes and put down a marker of 1:44.994.

Sergio Perez, a two-time winner in Baku, is one of the first drivers out to blast round on a set of softs before heading back to the garage. The Mexican has some information for his pit wall, though. "It feels a little bit damp, the track," says Perez.

Marc Priestley
Former F1 mechanic on BBC Radio 5 Sports Extra

It's very much a straight circuit, but unlike the typical street circuit like a Monaco or Singapore, it does have a very very fast sections.

The teams are always trying to balance giving maximum downforce for the real tight and twisty stuff, with the high-speed 2km flat out section at the end of the lap for which you need no downforce and minimal drag.

Andrew Benson
BBC F1 correspondent

Image source, Getty Images

Lando Norris said McLaren were "quite a long way off" in Friday practice at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, adding the team were 0.3-0.4 seconds slower than the front-runners on the Baku track.

Norris was 17th fastest after being held up by Alpine's Pierre Gasly on his fastest lap, but he said team-mate Oscar Piastri's fifth place, 0.5secs off the pace, was "more where we are".

"If we nail it we are just about there," he said. "But I'm sure they are not even close to nailing it yet.

"We have quite a lot to find compared to Mercedes, Red Bull and Ferrari. They are all very similar and then there is a good 0.3-0.4secs gap back to us. A lot of work for us to do.”

Norris said the low-grip conditions in Baku were working against McLaren.

"We always know that Ferrari are very quick here," he said. “With these track conditions Mercedes are going be very quick.

"It is very slidey out there. We perform very well in the higher grip circuits naturally and the track is way off where we were last year.

"I'm finding it difficult at the minute but we will work hard tonight. The car is still not bad. I’m sure we can still get a lap time out of it but we are not as clearly ahead as we have been at other races."

Spots of rain in the paddock? That's what the word on the streets say.

Third practice is green.

Image source, Getty Images

The build-up to the Azerbaijan Grand Prix has been focused on McLaren's dilemma over team orders but while Oscar Piastri was among the top-five drivers in second practice, Lando Norris was stuck down in 17th place.

The Briton was on a flying lap on the softs and look certain to be heading to the top of the timesheets. However, he encountered a slow-moving Pierre Gasly in the Alpine - who later said he was experiencing issues with his battery - and had to back out of his attempt.

Image source, Getty Images

Briton Ollie Bearman is making his second sub appearance of the season this weekend - and on another street circuit - after sitting in for Carlos Sainz at Ferrari in March.

The 19-year-old has been called off the bench to jump in the Haas in place of Kevin Magnussen, who is missing the Azerbaijan Grand Prix after collecting 12 penalty points in a calendar year, resulting in an automatic one-race ban.

Bearman finished 11th place in first practice and 10th in the second session, with his engineer telling him: "That was an excellent session in general, Ollie. Really good long run, we learned a lot there." To which the teenager replied: "Thank you, that was my first FP2."

After being thrown in the deep end on a sprint weekend in Saudi Arabia, Bearman gets the luxury of another practice outing in Baku before his latest qualifying session.

Andrew Benson
BBC F1 correspondent

Image source, Getty Images

Red Bull look much more competitive than they did in Monza two weeks ago, but Max Verstappen, after setting the pace in the first session, did not have such a happy time in the second.

He complained about understeer - a lack of front grip - as he has done at many recent races, and had both a near-miss with the wall after misjudging Turn Five and then a trip up the escape road at Turn Three.

The Dutchman, 62 points ahead of Lando Norris with eight races remaining, ended up 0.545secs off the pace.

Image source, Getty Images

It wasn't a quick recovery for Charles Leclerc, mind, as the Monegasque man found the handling of his Ferrari difficult following the repairs. He reported "the car is bent somewhere", before telling his pit wall it was "impossible" they could not have seen a problem on the data.

The delay meant Leclerc set his qualifying simulation later than the rest of the field and with the track evolving, he was able to clock a 1:43.484 on his soft-tyre run - a time that was just 0.006 seconds better than the Red Bull of Sergio Perez.

The top five was completed by Lewis Hamilton in third, Carlos Sainz finishes fourth and Oscar Piastri bringing his McLaren home in fifth.

Image source, Getty Images

The opening hour of running in Azerbaijan's capital city saw plenty of incidents, with three red flags for debris on track and crashes for Charles Leclerc and Williams' Franco Colapinto.

On the timesheets, Red Bull's Max Verstappen beat Lewis Hamilton to the quickest time right at the end of the session, jumping above the Mercedes driver by 0.313 seconds.

Verstappen's team-mate Sergio Perez was third, title chaser Lando Norris was fourth and Carlos Sainz put his Ferrari in the top five in fifth.

Leclerc's moment came at Turn 15, when he took dirt on the outside of the approach to the corner and ended up in the wall

Colapinto, meanwhile, found himself in a spot of bother at Turn Four, the rear of his car sliding out after a snap and thumping the barriers.