Piastri hits wall and lands reprimand in Baku practice
Ian Chadband |
Oscar Piastri is relieved to have come through a “tricky” day at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix after hitting the wall on the difficult Baku street circuit in practice and then escaping with a reprimand from stewards.
Yet Australia’s championship leader Piastri, winner in Baku last year, was not alone in his troubles on Friday with his McLaren teammate and main title challenger Lando Norris enduring an even more “costly” and damaging brush with the barriers.
For once, the dominant McLaren duo, who can wrap up the constrictors’ title for their team in record time on Sunday, were off the pace in practice, as Lewis Hamilton led Charles Leclerc in a Ferrari one-two in the second session.
Piastri, whose car suffered a power unit problem during his truncated morning session in which he finished second fastest, ended up 12th on the timesheets in the afternoon, two places ahead of Norris, who’d been quickest of all in first practice.
Piastri was later also relieved to learn hat he had escaped with just a reprimand from the stewards over a yellow flag breach.
The Victorian had to see the stewards 40 minutes after the second session in which it appeared he had ignored a yellow flag brought out when Perre Gasly’s Alpine went into the run-off just ahead of him.
But the stewards, who did have the power to impose a grid penalty for such an offence, felt Piastri had committed what was only “technically a breach of the regulations” and gave him just a reprimand over “mitigating circumstances”.
It was Piastri’s first reprimand of the season, and a driver must accrue four more to land a 10-place grid penalty.
The biggest drama earlier in the afternoon came when, first, Norris clipped the wall, his rear-left tyre snapping into the barrier on the exit of turn four, leaving him to have to limp back to the pits in his damaged car.
Norris called the incident “costly, especially here” and “annoying” as he didn’t get the chance to practice for the rest of the session. “It was feeling good until then,” he shrugged.
“I’m behind on the learnings now, a scrappy session from both my side and Oscar’s side — he seemed to be struggling a bit with the car as well.”
Only six minutes after his crash, Piastri also brushed his McLaren against the wall on the exit of the final turn, although his car was relatively unscathed in comparison to Norris’s.
“A bit tricky, just a bit up and down,” shrugged Piastri. “I think the pace is there, it’s just not the easiest to get the most out of it at the moment.
“We tried a few things in FP2 (second practice), I’m sure we’ll look back and see what we can change for tomorrow. I think there’s still a lot of positives from today, just a few tricky moments.”
Lewis Hamilton set the fastest time of the day (1min 41.293sec) which was 0.074sec ahead of his Ferrari teammate Charles Leclerc, with George Russell third for Mercedes. Piastri’s best was 1:42.295, more than a second down on Hamilton and just 0.096sec behind Norris.
But Piastri was encouraged by some of the longer, race-simulation runs later in the session which suggested McLaren are likely to still be the pacesetters over the weekend.
AAP
