Azerbaijan Race Reaction
Image: Red Bull
Despite it being a dull race, the Azerbaijan Grand Prix had a few thrilling moments that kept us on the edge of our seats! Let’s dive into the key takeaways from the first Grand Prix in three weeks.
The king is back
Just like yesterday, the king of street circuits, Sergio Perez, dominated the streets of Baku, beating teammate Max Verstappen to the top spot. But is there really a difference in pace between the two Red Bull drivers? The simple answer would be yes, there really is a difference.
Others may argue that Verstappen didn’t have the advantage of pitting under the safety car due to Nyck de Vries crashing out. Perez, among other frontrunners, pitted under the safety car, cutting vital seconds off their time in the pitlane. Verstappen cleared Leclerc to gain P2 so he could chase after Perez, who seemed to have it all under control.
The Red Bulls pulled nearly 20 seconds clear from the next car, with Leclerc driving in no man’s land in P3. The tense battle between the Red Bull cars went on from the safety car restart until the chequered flag, with both cars having close calls with the unsettling barriers at Turn 15.
In a post-race interview with Sky Sports F1, Verstappen said: “Today was a very good day in terms of understanding the car and what I need from the car.”
The Dutchman’s lead over Perez shrunk considerably this weekend with the Mexican driver winning both the sprint race and the Grand Prix. With just six points separating the two drivers, the championship battle is well and truly on.
Business as usual for Ferrari
Charles Leclerc seems to be out of luck in the last few races as the Monegasque failed to win the races he started in pole position for. Although Ferrari has been quicker than Mercedes and Aston Martin over the weekend, Leclerc still thinks there is a huge gap to close to Red Bull, who seem to be running away with both championships.
Carlos Sainz has had a weekend he’d like to forget as the Spaniard has been off the pace for the entire duration of the race weekend due to a lack of data collected in the singular practice session in the new sprint weekend format.
“We didn’t have any problems and it was a trouble free weekend. I think when I look back at the weekend, I look at every single session and we absolutely maximised everything.”
With Sainz out of commission, Leclerc’s pace has been encouraging for Ferrari fans as it’s clear the Prancing Horse has found a small chunk of speed and can now run level with and beat rivals, Mercedes and Aston Martin. However, after a few laps ahead of the Red Bulls in both the sprint race and Grand Prix, Leclerc had no chance of fighting the much quicker Red Bull.
Leclerc also held off a late advance from the Aston Martin of Fernando Alonso, who was gaining on the Ferrari at an alarming rate. In some laps, Alonso cut down nearly three-tenths of a second per lap. Leclerc drove a brilliant race despite the late charge from the Aston Martin and should be proud of the improvement in Ferrari’s speed.
What happened to Mercedes?
With the impressive performance last time out in Melbourne, Mercedes finally looked like it was back on top of its issues that were all too familiar with during the majority of 2022 and at the start of this year.
Despite the Mercedes looking pretty competitive during the earlier stages of the race, both Russell and Hamilton lacked the overall pace to make progress where tyre management and agility were key. Lewis Hamilton was only seven-tenths behind Carlos Sainz at the chequered flag but struggled to close that gap for the majority of the final stint. With Russell experiencing yet more bad luck with a Q2 exit on Friday’s qualifying session, he made the most of the challenging track conditions and finished in P8.
Mercedes, having acknowledged that Russell had a large enough gap to Norris in ninth, pitted the Brit for soft-compound tyres and encouraged Russell to set the fastest lap of the race, deducting a potentially vital point from Max Verstappen.
Both Mercedes looked like they were struggling this weekend but there’s still a positive atmosphere at the Brackley headquarters as both Hamilton and Russell aim to win races by the end of this 23-race-long season.
Wake me up when this race is over
With the sprint race providing an underwhelming performance, fans hoped that the full-length race would be more entertaining. It seems as if Formula One has gone backwards when it comes to overtaking.
The tyre management is now becoming more important than the actual positions gained on track. With the new aerodynamic regulations in place from last year, F1 fans were pretty angry that, despite the cars having better aero to follow the car in front closer, there weren’t many overtakes in this race at all.
In fact, the moment in the race most people were talking about was the incident involving Ocon and the group of photographers who were in the pitlane at the start of the final lap.
It was clear after Ocon had done the entire race on one compound of tyres, that he’d have to come in and change them or risk disqualification. Ocon came steaming into the pits and narrowly avoided hitting anyone. Thankfully, nobody was injured but the FIA did launch an investigation into why this incident occurred in the first place.
Some would argue that it was down to miscommunication between Alpine and Ocon but others are blaming the FIA directly.
This is what the FIA said in a statement after the race: “We walked through the relevant procedures and protocol with the FIA representatives in detail and required them to take immediate steps to reconsider these procedures and protocols with the relevant stakeholders (including FOM, the teams and the FIA) to ensure that this situation does not occur again.”
We’re certain that whatever caused this will become clearer later on as F1 has clamped down on safety regulations such as teams climbing the fence at the end of the race.
What did you make of the pitlane incident involving Ocon and the photographers? Comment your thoughts below!
Here’s the full classification for the race:
