There was a sense of certainty that a marshal would need to reach for a red flag at some point during Baku’s Friday practice sessions, and it duly arrived within the first 15 minutes of FP1. Carlos Sainz ran over the exit kerb at Turn 16 and appeared to leave a shard of debris behind but, as the marshals inspected the culprit, it turned out to be a piece of rubber-like bonding within the kerb that had sprung free.
Indeed, a marshal yanked at the rubbery mass like a cartoon character attempting to rid a garden of a particularly difficult weed, and the subsequent checks enforced a 25-minute layoff in proceedings. It’s not the first time that the circuit infrastructure has caused a red flag during the Baku weekend; Valtteri Bottas hit a drain cover in 2016’s FP3 session, and George Russell did likewise in 2019’s FP1 and tore up the chassis of his Williams on the run to Turn 3. If one was feeling uncharitable, you could suggest that the FW42 was improved by such widespread damage…