Race Review: Baku

What a race Baku was, from an uneventful first half to two tyre failures, a red flag and Hamilton losing P1 position, all finishing with a very wholesome podium of Perez, Vettel and Gasly. The track is located in the capital of Azerbaijan, and is 6.0003 km long (3.73 miles), with 20 turns and 2 DRS zones. The drivers complete 51 laps of the track, with lots of scenic views such as the castle.

Free practice was messy; it saw two red flags after an engine failure from Latifi in FP2, and Verstappen putting his car into the wall at Turn 15 in FP3, with Russell also retiring from an engine failure and Mazepin needing a new front wing after FP3. Qualifying was eventful, to say the least, there were 4 red flags during the session, the first two in Q1 with both Stroll and Giovinazzi hitting the wall, Q2 saw Ricciardo do the same, before Tsunoda and Sainz crashed one after the other, putting an end to Q3, securing Charles Leclerc another pole position. Neither Stroll nor Giovinazzi set a lap time in qualifying, so their times in FP3 were used to determine the back row of the grid. Lando Norris initially finished P6 but a red flag violation saw him receive a 3 place grid penalty, pushing him to P9.

With the penalty applied, qualifying finished as follows: P1 Leclerc, P2 Hamilton, P3 Verstappen, P4 Gasly, P5 Sainz, P6 Perez, P7 Tsunoda, P8 Alonso, P9 Norris, P10 Bottas, P11 Vettel, P12 Ocon, P13 Ricciardo, P14 Räikkönen, P15 Russell, P16 Latifi, P17 Schumacher, P18 Mazepin, P19 Stroll and P20 Giovinazzi.

After a minute of silence to remember former FIA president Max Mosely and McLaren shareholder Mansour Ojjeh (who had sadly passed that morning), both hugely loved in the F1 community, we had lights out. The race start was a chaotic one, with a big shuffle in the order, most notably Norris dropping down a few places and Perez having an amazing start, moving up to P4. Ocon was forced to pit after the first lap which saw him retire from the race as a result of a boost pressure loss. Hamilton managed to overtake Leclerc on Lap 2, with Verstappen doing the same by Lap 7, as well as Perez a lap later, putting Leclerc into P4.

Lap 12 saw Hamilton pit for hards but came out with a 4.6 second pit stop as Gasly came down the pit straight blocking his exit out. Verstappen managed to undercut in the following lap with a 1.9 second stop. Perez, after a clear window to fly around the track, then came into the pits, coming out in P2. The race carried on fairly uneventful until Lap 31 where a left-rear tyre blowout put Stroll into the wall, near the top of the pit lane. Yellow flags came out and luckily Stroll was unhurt. The restart saw a battle between Gasly, Leclerc and Vettel, with Vettel taking P4, up from P11.

Lap 47 saw race leader Verstappen also suffer a left-rear tyre blowout, crushing his dreams of finishing P1 after driving so brilliantly after a high-speed crash on the main straight. Luckily, he was also unhurt, but a yellow flag turned into a red flag with all cars returning to the pit lane whilst the debris was cleared. This meant the race was going to come down to a two-lap sprint.

George Russell didn’t make it around the formation lap and had to hop out of his car at the entrance to the pit lane, retiring him from the race. In the restart, Hamilton took Perez for P1 but a tyre lock up saw him go straight at Turn 1, into the escape road and dropping him out of the points. There was an intense battle between Gasly and Leclerc for P3, with Norris hot on their heels, as well as a near-collision between the two Haas at the back. Perez took P1, winning his first race with Red Bull.

After a team radio confusion under the red flag saw Latifi stay out instead of coming into the pits as he should have under the protocol, Latifi was given a ten-second penalty. Once this was applied, the results were as follows:

P1 Perez, P2 Vettel, P3 Gasly, P4 Leclerc, P5 Norris, P6 Alonso, P7 Tsunoda, P8 Sainz, P9 Ricciardo, P10 Räikkönen, P11 Giovinazzi, P12 Bottas, P13 Schumacher, P14 Mazepin, P15 Hamilton, P16 Latifi, with Russell, Ocon, Stroll and Verstappen all DNF.

Driver Of The Day: Vettel

What a performance from the World Champion. Going from P11 to finishing on the podium, the driver showed what a talent he is. The seven-position change, with an undercut thrown in, was down to brilliant driving and great strategy from the team. He is a thoroughly deserving driver of the day.

Biggest Crash: Stroll

Lap 55 saw a left-rear tyre blow out for Lance Stroll, sending him into the wall on the straight and doing some serious damage to the car. The safety car was deployed, and the pit lane closed as the crash happened near the entrance of it. The driver was luckily unhurt and was taken back to his garage by the safety car. Whilst Verstappen had a similar crash, he was not in as dangerous of a position as Stroll. If Stroll’s car had been any more in the centre, Gasly would have t-boned him which could have been fatal for both of the drivers. He said ‘woah woah woah woah red flag, red flag, get me out of this place on the track’ over the radio, suggesting he knew how dangerous it was. You can see the incident here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBx-Xmc4-CY

Overtake Of The Day: Gasly and Leclerc Battle

There are many overtakes to choose from in this race, however, the Gasly and Leclerc battle in the final two laps after the restart was some brilliant driving. With Norris threatening at one point as well, there was at least 4 overtakes between the two drivers as they rounded the circuit. You can watch the battle here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUbJ63SwnCo

Biggest Heartbreak: Verstappen

Verstappen drove a brilliant race, making incredibly few mistakes as he flew around the track. The tyre blowout in Lap 47 sent him into the wall on the straight. It was clear to see how angry and upset he was at the time. The driver ended up leaning his head on a nearby wall, which pulled on the heartstrings of fans everywhere. At this point Hamilton was P2 in the race, therefore, going ahead of him in the driver’s championship. Whilst Hamilton did drop out of the points on the restart, leaving the driver’s championship top spot unchanged and softening the blow, it is a tough one to take for any driver, particularly when he had driven so brilliantly up to the incident.

Best Radio Comment: Vettel

‘Felicidades or feliz navidad, or whatever you say to Checo, I am happy from him’. Cute and amusing all in one line. Who wouldn’t want to be told Merry Christmas after winning a race and who doesn’t love Sebastian Vettel?

A special shoutout has to go to the one and only Ted Kravtiz. His hilarious commentary produced some classic one-liners such as “hello Mr undercut, my name is Lando Norris” after Norris boxed. Crofty also whipped out a dad joke, with “someone texted me this morning saying you don’t have many people called Lance these days, but back in the Mediaeval times, people are called lance-a-lot”. Iconic.

You can listen to the best team radios from the weekend here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kvz3DnrwxvA

Takeaways

It was so great to see Vettel back on form. The Aston Martin team have a good car this season and to see Vettel back on the podium and doing well makes fans very happy; hopefully, this success will carry on. Moreover, it is safe to say that seeing him, Gasly and Perez on the podium is very wholesome.

It is safe to say that it was not a great weekend for Mercedes. Excluding retirements, Hamilton has not finished outside the points since Spain 2013, with Bottas also performing poorly for a Mercedes driver. With Bottas in P12 and Lewis in P15 (it would have P16 without Latifi’s penalty) it is safe to say they are not where you think a nine times Constructors Championship team would be. It will be interesting to see how the team rallies and come back together for France in two weekends time.

Tsunoda moving from Milton Keyes to AlphaTauri’s Faenza HQ seems to have done a trick; Red Bull asked him to move out there to aid his development with the team. The driver seemed much more focused and settled after his start in F1, showing his true talent, qualifying P7 and keeping that place as he crossed the line at the end of the race. It should be very exciting to see how he develops over the rest of the season.

Pirelli also have some questions to answer. Tyre blowouts at nearly 300 km/h are unbelievably dangerous and if these cars were not as safe as they are now, the accidents could have been fatal. Whilst Pirelli say their initial investigations suggest that the accident happened due to debris on the track, it seems a coincidence that it happened to the exact same tyre on both cars and Red Bull said that they had no warning at all of any puncture or pressure loss. This is not the first time Pirelli have been questioned over the quality of their tyres and hopefully their in-depth investigation into the incidents this week will shed some more light on the situation.

Up next, we have the French GP, taking place between the 18th and 20th June. See you then!