Mercedes lost lap time in every corner of the Baku street circuit on Friday, mainly due to tyre temperature on the W12 cars. Both Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas fell outside the top 10 in the Friday afternoon FP2 session, which led to Mercedes boss Toto Wolff initially declining to speak to the media and head straight to the debrief room to figure out why they had such a distinct lack of pace around the Azerbaijan track. The analysis also began in the media, with Sky Sports F1 and German publication Auto Motor und Sport putting Mercedes' troubles predominantly down to tyre temperature. ‘No matter how hot it is, the tyres on the Mercedes simply don't want to come up to temperature...
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