Perez wants Baku crash kerb changed overnight

The Mexican crashed after taking too much kerb on the entrance to the corner, a narrow kink by the city’s castle walls, which pitched the Force India driver into the outside wall and caused significant damage to the right-hand side of his car.

Jolyon Palmer also crashed at the same spot in the second session, while a number of drivers had to abort attempts to make the corner and use an escape road.

Perez said drivers had voiced their concerns during the drivers’ briefing, and that FIA Formula 1 race director Charlie Whiting was working on a potential solution to modify the corner.

“The kerb is quite difficult, and it’s not so easy to ride that for us,” said Perez. “It’s quite narrow and we asked Charlie to try to have a look to see if we can change it because we all feel that it’s quite narrow and very easy to make a mistake.

“I think the kerb is a bit on the high side. We had a word with Charlie regarding Turn 8 [in the drivers’ briefing] and I think he’ll have a look and will try to improve it for us for tomorrow.

“He [said he] would try to make a compromise. He didn’t say what, but I think he’s thinking to see what’s the best compromise he can make.”

Palmer “on a knife-edge on the brakes”

Renault’s Palmer hit the wall with his front-right corner midway through FP2, bringing the session to a halt.

He said braking distances had been hard to judge during practice, and that he was caught out by testing their limits. 

“You’ve got a lot of high-speed corners and big braking zones, but it feels like the margin of braking distance is very sensitive with the brake pressure,” he said. “You can be under control and in fact you feel a little bit slow and the next time you push a bit more it’s too much. 

“It’s on a knife-edge on the brakes. I was a little bit slow in Turn 8 and then I pushed a bit more on the braking and locked a wheel and basically went straight in the wall.

“[I was] just trying to push the braking a little bit and had a front lock-up.”