Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri suffer mixed fortunes as bizarre red-flag hits Azerbaijan practice

Lando Norris set the pace in a red-flag-hit first practice session for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix in which McLaren team-mate Oscar Piastri endured a rocky ride.

The hour-long run around the Baku Street Circuit was stopped after 13 minutes due to a strip of bonded rubber, applied to a kerb at Turn 16 to keep it in place on the circuit, that had been worked loose by the Williams of Carlos Sainz riding over it.

A marshal had difficulty tearing it clear, and although the offending strip was soon removed, the session failed to restart as swiftly due to concerns that the kerb was no longer secure. The fix resulted in a 26-minute delay.

For Piastri, the incident was a God-send, as minutes before the red flag, he was forced back to the garage with a power unit issue.

At the time, it appeared it may be terminal for the session, but his team managed to apply a fix during the red-flag period, allowing him to return to the track once the session restarted, missing out on no more than four or five laps of action compared to his rivals.

The championship leader, who also clouted a wall hard, went on to finish second quickest, 0.310s behind Norris, who enjoyed a far smoother outing.

A note of caution for Norris, however, in that no driver who has finished quickest in first practice in the eight previous editions of the race, has gone on to win the race.

Hamilton suffers wall damage

At the time of the red flag, Norris spearheaded the pack with a time of 1:43.747s, four-tenths of a second clear of Mercedes' George Russell, followed by Charles Leclerc, Max Verstappen, and Yuki Tsunoda, the only other drivers within a second of the McLaren driver, all on softs.

For this weekend, Pirelli has gone a step softer across the three compounds being used this weekend, compared to last year.

On his first push lap, Piastri slotted into P10, 1.105s adrift of Norris, before Verstappen then moved to within 0.043s of the lead time.

With a fresh set of softs on his MCL38, Norris stretched his advantage to a second over Verstappen, shaving a second off of his own time with a new mark of 1:42.704s, quicker than the best Q1 time from Leclerc 12 months ago.

With 10 minutes remaining, Hamilton clipped a wall on the inside of the Turn 5 left-hander, sustaining a puncture and damaging the front wing, losing the left-side endplate, in particular, necessitating a return to the pits for fresh rubber and a new nose.

Team-mate Leclerc, meanwhile, moved up to second on the timesheet, albeit 0.552s down on Norris, with Russell seven-tenths adrift.

Inside the final four minutes, Verstappen and Piastri endured their moments of consternation, with the four-time F1 champion needing to take to an escape road after locking up on the approach to the sharp Turn 3.

Piastri, meanwhile, gave the barrier a clout with his right-rear wheel out of Turn 15 but was able to continue. The Australian eventually went on to set a lap three-tenths of a second behind Norris, with Leclerc third.

Russell finished one-thousandth of a second behind Leclerc in fourth, ahead of Williams' Alex Albon, who lost the glass from his left wing mirror early in the session, followed by Tsunoda and Verstappen.

Sainz and Racing Bulls duo Liam Lawson and Isack Hadjar completed the top 10, the latter 1.271s down, whilst Hamilton was 13th, 1.383s off the pace.

Alpine duo Franco Colapinto and Pierre Gasly were slowest, the latter 2.714s adrift.