Jennifer Harris: My bucket list: one year doing every F1 race; one year doing every MotoGP race. Unfortunately I'll have to win the lottery first!

Sebastian Vettel weaves his way through the narrow sections of the track to pop in his first timed lap of the day - a 1:47.027 to go second quickest.

Valtteri Bottas speaking to Jennie Gow earlier:

"Personally I really like the track and the long straight should be allowing us to have some interesting racing.

"Ultimately I expect we will be proving the critics wrong about this track. I think there's a lot of potential with this track and I think all the drivers they really enjoy this place."

Image source, Getty Images

There's a few more times cropping up on the board now. Fernando Alonso does a 1:50.098 to go eighth quickest but there's been nothing yet from either Mercedes or the Ferraris with almost 30 minutes of the session gone.

Romain Grosjean is joined by a couple of other drivers in completing timed laps. Felipe Massa leads the way with a 1:48.002. Kevin MAgnussen is nine tenths of a second behind with Romain Grosjean (+1.9) and Lance Stroll (+3 seconds). All times have been set on the soft compound of tyre.

It's going to be interesting to see how Esteban Ocon and Sergio Perez get on this weekend after a little kerfuffle in Canada.

Perez appeared to ignore team orders by not letting Ocon past, potentially costing Force India a podium.

Force India's Esteban Ocon looking bright and cheerful out on track this morning.

Image source, Getty Images

Marc Riley: My bucket list's a spectator version of Fernando's: Monaco, Indy 500 and Le Mans. Only been to Monaco so far...

Romain Grosjean has already got his first moan of the weekend out of the way. It was a minor moan though, a little whinge about the brakes after a lock up. Standard.

He has, however, set the first time of the day - a 1:52.952.

Andrew Benson
Chief F1 writer

Ever since Fernando Alonso said after the Canadian Grand Prix that he expected grid penalties in Baku following his engine failure on the penultimate lap in Montreal, Honda has refused to confirm whether he would. They don’t reveal their “engine strategy” before the race weekend, they said.

Now they have, and the news is not good. New turbos and MGU-Hs for both Alonso and Stoffel Vandoorne, plus an entirely new power-unit for the Belgian after second practice add up to a drop of 15 grid places for Alonso and 30 for Vandoorne.

The good news is that the MGU-H/turbos are an upgrade and Honda also has some other development parts to try on Friday. But Alonso said he was not getting his hopes up. “The deficit here should be I think more than 2.5-three seconds on the straight, so if it is 2.8 it will not change anything.”

Another race weekend, another hitch for the McLaren drivers. Both Fernando Alonso and Stoffel Vandoorne will start Sunday's race from the back of the grid after engine penalties.

A break they cannot catch.

Everyone has been out on the track for an installation lap apart from Felipe Massa. He's yet to emerge from the pits in the Williams.

Lewis Hamilton has a life bucket list, but what would be/is on your F1 bucket list? Tracks you'd like to go to? People you'd like to meet? Mementos you'd like to get?

Let us know via #bbcf1, text in on 81111 (UK only) or post a comment on the BBC Sport Facebook page.

Andrew Benson
Chief F1 writer

Image source, Getty Images

Lewis Hamilton was asked on Thursday what he would have on his ‘bucket list’ of things he would like to do in his life.

He said: “One of the things is climb Mount Everest. Meet someone I have always wanted to meet. Learn a language. In England, schooling wasn't really good for learning a language. French was my best subject in terms of GCSE results but I don’t speak any French even though I live in France. I would like to play the piano.”

Image source, Getty Images

Lewis Hamilton may have had a qualifying session to forget in Baku last year but he returns to the city on the back of one of the best qualifying performances in his career.

The Briton put in a sensational lap to take pole position in Canada last-time out - the 65th pole position of his career, moving him level with Ayrton Senna.

Hamilton converted that pole position into a victory that moves him to within 12 points of championship leader Sebastian Vettel.

All to play for this weekend.

Right then, the green light goes on at the end of the pitlane and 90 minutes of practice is under way.

Andrew Benson
Chief F1 writer

Image source, Getty Images

Jolyon Palmer has had a difficult year so far at Renault. He has lagged a long way behind team-mate Nico Hulkenberg, it has been known for some weeks that his seat was under threat - we first reported here over the Monaco weekend - and last week team boss Cyril Abiteboul came out and said it publicly. Pressure situations such as this are meat and potatoes in F1, but Palmer does not seem to be handling it well, at least not judging by his brief interview with BBC Sport’s Jennie Gow on Thursday.

How would you sum up your season so far? “It’s not been very good,” Palmer said.

What’s letting you down?

“It’s tough to say. You tell me. what’s letting me down. qualifying pace and then we start on the back foot in the race.”

How do you come back positive?

“By avoiding these BBC interviews probably. It’s not a great place to start, turning up on a Thursday. People come and they say: ‘You’re doing so poorly, how are you going to turn it around? What are you going to do?’ Every weekend I turn up with the same attitude: It's a fresh weekend, it’s a time to… Anything could happen here. You do the track walk, work with the engineers, and it’s a fresh start. It’s just a shame having to answer all these questions.”

Commentary is live now online and you can listen via this page.

First practice gets under way at 10:00 BST.