BAKU : McLaren’s Lando Norris was fastest in a red-flagged first practice for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix on Friday with championship-leading teammate Oscar Piastri second after suffering a power unit problem on his opening lap.
The hour-long session at the Baku City Circuit was halted for 25 minutes for kerb repairs, disrupting team schedules but allowing McLaren to fix Piastri’s car without losing more track time to others.
“There was debris on the track that wasn’t from a car, it was from part of a kerb that had come up, and they are worried it is not secure,” Racing Bulls’ principal Alan Permane told Sky Sports during the session.
Norris lapped in one minute 42.704 seconds around the street circuit with Piastri 0.310 off the pace once he returned to the track.
The Australian, 31 points clear of Norris with eight rounds remaining, clipped the tyre barrier with his right rear at turn 15 but escaped serious damage and completed 14 laps to his teammate’s 19.
Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc, who has been on pole in Baku for the past four years, was third and 0.552 slower.
Mercedes’ George Russell, who was unwell on Thursday and missed the scheduled media day, sounded rough over the team radio but was fourth with a time 0.001 off Leclerc’s best effort.
Williams’ Alex Albon was fifth, ahead of Red Bull’s Yuki Tsunoda and four-times world champion Max Verstappen, who locked up and went off down an escape road before spinning his car around.
Carlos Sainz was eighth for Williams and Racing Bulls duo Liam Lawson and Isack Hadjar completed the top 10.
Ferrari’s seven-times world champion Lewis Hamilton, a previous winner in Baku with Mercedes, clipped the barriers and damaged his car’s front wing as well as suffering a puncture. He ended up 13th.
(Writing by Alan Baldwin in London, editing by…)
