sports📡 ESPNcricinfoSep 14, 2026👁 0 views

Who slept worst last night: Carlos Sainz

It is almost exactly 10 years since Formula 1 first took to the streets of Baku in June 2016. Everyone was curious to see what Azerbaijan's Grand Prix debut would bring, and plenty had predicted a chaotic race littered with crashes on the street circuit. In the end, things turned out rather differently, and the European Grand Prix sent plenty of Formula 1 fans to sleep - and that was in the early afternoon.

I still vividly remember that, in the Baku media centre - unconventionally housed not in the paddock itself but in the Hilton next door - quite a few of my fellow journalists weren't even watching Formula 1. They were watching Le Mans. At the most iconic of all 24-hour races, the leading Toyota broke down in the final minute, handing Porsche an utterly unexpected victory. Drama of historic proportions.

Advertisement