Lewis Hamilton takes surprise advantage as Baku bites Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri hard

Lewis Hamilton stunned in second practice for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, taking full advantage of what was a remarkably miserable session for McLaren's title-chasing duo Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris.

Without a podium to his name in his debut year with Ferrari, the seven-time F1 champion posted the fastest time of the hour-long run, setting a time of 1:41.293s, finishing 0.074s clear of team-mate Charles Leclerc, who has his sights set on a fifth consecutive pole position.

The anomaly for the session was that Piastri and Norris struggled at various stages.

For Norris, his session ended just after the half-hour mark when he smacked a wall out of Turn 4 with the left rear of his MCL38.

Surprisingly, there was no puncture, but damage was clearly sustained to the suspension due to the way the car was 'crabbing' - trying to go sideways - as Norris made the long journey back to the pits.

Moments later, Piastri also clipped a barrier with his right-rear wheel, necessitating a trip to the pits for an inspection. Clear marks on the tyre and wheel were visible before the Australian was sent back out.

Coming at a stage when Piastri was embarking on a lower-fuel run, it left him 12th on the timesheet, two places and a tenth of a second behind Norris.

It was the second time in the day the championship leader had touched a barrier, after doing so in an FP1 session in which his team was forced to fix a power unit issue.

Hamilton shines

Hamilton initially struggled in FP2. After clipping a barrier late in FP1, breaking the front wing and sustaining a puncture, he locked up minutes into the second session, forcing him into a run-off area, and partly flat-spotting a set of medium tyres.

With a range of tyres unusually on show at the start of the session, with the teams making up for the lost time in FP1 due to a kerb issue, the soft runners naturally led the way.

The lead changed hands several times before Norris settled in at the top for a short while with a 1:42.199s. Leclerc, though, sliced four-tenths of a second off that, aided in part by a considerable tow down the main straight.

Remarkably, soon after, Hamilton, on medium rubber, purpled the first two sectors, but without a tow afforded to Leclerc, finished 0.152s adrift.

Norris appeared set to return to the top after setting a personal best in the first sector, and purpling the second, only to ease off in the final phase.

On a second run on the yellow-striped Pirellis, Hamilton delivered a superb lap to move ahead of Leclerc by 0.243s. The latter's second attempt on his soft tyres saw him clip a wall.

The medium tyre, which was last year's soft as Pirelli has gone a step softer across the three compounds being used this weekend to shake up the strategy options on Sunday, is due to be heavily used in qualifying as the preferred rubber.

It meant that Hamilton was quickest of all drivers on both the medium and softs at the end of the day.

With the McLaren duo making mistakes, the Mercedes pair of George Russell and Kimi Antonelli were third and fourth fastest, both just under half a second behind Hamilton.

Haas' Oliver Bearman and Liam Lawson in his Racing Bulls were fifth and seventh on the timesheet, both on mediums, sandwiching the soft-shod Red Bull of Max Verstappen, who was six tenths off the pace.

Esteban Ocon in his Haas, along with Williams' Alex Albon, and then Norris, completed the top 10.

Alpine's Franco Colapinto was slowest, two tenths down.