Oscar Piastri suffers major setback minutes into Azerbaijan GP practice

Oscar Piastri's chances of success in the Azerbaijan Grand Prix have taken a hit after a problem developed on his McLaren minutes into practice.

As the field were completing their initial laps in Baku, Piastri's engineer Tom Stallard, radioed the Australian, instructing him to slow down and limit revs on the car.

The full instruction delivered to Piastri was "Recharge on, back off, recharge on, back off. Avoid full load, keep low revs, avoid full load, keep full revs."

Piastri, who leads the championship by 31 points from team-mate Lando Norris, then returned to the pits, climbing from the MCL39 as the team tried to rectify the problem.

Team-mate Lando Norris also had an incident where a pitot tube cover was left on the car, requiring him to pit to remove it, before a red flag was thrown for debris, with Norris leading from George Russell and Charles Leclerc.

The team confirmed a power unit issue was being investigated, but Piastri drew some luck with a red flag being thrown for debris moments after he pitted as Carlos Sainz ran over the exit kerb at Turn 16, dislodging rubber, which became stuck under the kerb. 

Fortunately, after the session resumed following a near 30-minute delay, Piastri was able to return to the track after the red flag was lifted after the problem was fixed.