Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, has hosted an F1 race since 2016. Up to this date every GP weekend had seen a different driver on pole. Baku street circuit is situated on the coast of the Caspean Sea and is the second longest circuit on the F1 calendar. Turns 8 and 9 are the narrowest point of all F1 circuits.
Red Bull and Ferrari stood out of all other teams in terms of their pace. Leclerc and Verstappen topped the timesheets alternately, and their teammates Perez and Sainz showed top form as well. The first session was interrupted by a red flag, with 2:30 remaining in the clock. Aston Martin's Stroll made a mistake, crashing into a tech-pro wall. The last minutes of the first session saw a terrible traffic jam, as everyone except for the top five (Verstappen, Perez, Leclerc, Sainz and Vettel) rushed out for the last attempt.
The eye-catching fact in Q2 was, that the Scuderia drivers made it on the top in spite of setting their lap times on a used set of soft tyres. However, a moment later Perez, who had clearly carried the Monaco momentum to Azerbaijan, went fastest. AlphaTauri's Tsunoda had a lockout and went wide on the scape road, causing yellow flags at the end of Q2. This ruined the last attempt of Alfa Romeo's Bottas for example. Surprisingly, both McLarens were knocked out of the last session, with Norris 11th and Ricciardo 12th.
The shootout for pole turned out a thriller. Sainz claimed provisional pole by 0.047s to his teammate. Perez had had the upper hand on his teammate the whole weekend, now being two hundredths of a second ahead of Verstappen, who wasn't satisfied with the front end of his RB18. I don't know where that came from, but on his second run Charles put together a lap, which was almost half a second faster than his teammate's benchmark! Perez managed to improve in the end as well, but the Mexican Monaco winner was still over two tenths shy of Charles' magical lap. Verstappen had to settle for P3, and provisional pole slipped through Carlos' fingers, turning into less glamorous P4. In spite of Mercedes' severe bouncing problem Russell made it 5th -"the best of the rest". AlphaTauri's Gasly will line up alongside the Briton, whilst the fourth row was locked down by Hamilton in the sister Mercedes and Tsunoda in the sister AlphaTauri. Aston Martin's Vettel, who managed to make it on the second step of the podium in Baku last year, qualified 9th ahead of Alpine's Alonso. There's no doubt whatsoever about who is the pole king of the season, as Charles has conquered six of eight poles this season!
All top ten drivers started to the race on the medium compound. Sergio Perez in P2 had a better reaction time at the start than pole-setter Leclerc, who locked his front left tyre going into Turn 1. Perez took advantage of the Monegasque's error and took the lead. Teammate Verstappen held on to his third place and was followed by Sainz in the sister Ferrari.
Perez had soon built up a two-second gap to Leclerc, who got immense pressure from behind by Verstappen. The first dramatic episode took place on lap 9 already, as Sainz's SF75 came to a halt in Turn 4 due to a hydraulic issue. Yellow flags turned into deployment of virtual safety car. Leclerc pitted for a fresh set of hard Pirellis, as did both Mercedes drivers. Both Red Bulls, on the other hand, stayed out taking the double lead in the race.
In five minutes time the virtual safety car ended, and the race was back on. Leclerc in P3 was now 12 seconds behind Verstappen. The flying Dutchman chased down his teammate, who was told on the team radio not to fight his teammate, so switching positions was easy. Max took the lead in the Azerbaijan GP.
The Red Bull teammates pitted on the sequential laps for a fresh set of hard tyres. Perez dropped down to P3 when rejoining the track, and Leclerc took the lead, as Verstappen pitted. When rejoining the track, Charles had a 13-second lead to his arch rival. The hunt was about to begin.
But then there was more drama! All of a sudden there was huge amount of white smoke coming from the rear of Charles' Ferrari, which revealed an engine-related failure. Charles managed to nurture his SF75 into the pits, but a DNF was an inevitable fact. Unbelievable but true, both red-suited drivers were out of the race! It meant zero points for the Red Team, whilst Red Bull were having a superior double lead in the race, on their way to score 46 points.
Behind the top two Russell in his Mercedes was third. The young Briton is the only driver, who has finished in the top five in every race this season. His teammate Hamilton complained on the team radio about agonising back pain. In spite of the severe pain, Hamilton made it past McLaren's Ricciardo, making his way up to P5.
With 20 laps to go, Magnussen in his Haas suffered an engine failure, and the Dane's car stopped on track. It was the fourth Ferrari-powered engine to blow out already, as both Ferrari drivers and Alfa Romeo's Zhou had been hit with an engine-related problem earlier in the race. Magnussen's DNF brought out another virtual safety car.
Verstappen made his second pit stop, and opted for another set of hard tyres. Teammate Perez was on similar strategy. Both Mercedes aces pitted as well. AlphaTauri trusted risky strategy, and both Gasly and Tsunoda stayed out. However, only a moment later Hamilton made a classy overtaking move on Tsunoda, claiming back P5.
The Red Bull duo's pace was on a level of their own. Other drivers clocked lap times from two to four seconds slower than those of the Red Bull aces. Behind the top two, Hamilton was closing the gap to Gasly eye-catchingly fast. At this point the Frenchman had over 30 laps on his hard Pirellis, so the risk was to come with a price. Teammate Tsunoda, too was on his way to bring valuable points for the team, but his rear wing got damaged, and the Japanese had to pit. It was a bit ironic, that in the super modern world of F1 racing, his rear wing was actually fixed with duct tape. Unfortunately the 20-second extra pit stop dropped the Japanese out of points.
On the closing stages of the race Hamilton attacked AlphaTauri's Gasly, who proved unable to defend his fourth place on his out-worn tyres. The gaps between the podium scorers were huge. The race winner Verstappen took the chequered flag 20 seconds ahead of teammate Perez, who was another 20 seconds ahead of Mercedes' Russell. Hamilton finished the race in P4, which was an impressive result for the Briton, who had been in pain throughout the race. P3 and P4 were the maximum for Mercedes, who are still trying to fix their bouncing issue and find their missing pace. Gasly finished in P5 respectively, with Vettel 6th for Aston Martin and Alonso 7th for Alpine. The top ten were completed by the McLaren duo of Ricciardo and Norris and Ocon in the sister Alpine. Verstappen tried his very best to get the extra point for the fastest lap time, but teammate Perez got it under his belt by four thousandths of a second.
It's almost time for the Red Team to push the panic button. Due to the double DNF Red Bull increased their lead into 80 points in the constructors' championship standings. Verstappen has now 150 points to Perez's 129 and Leclerc's 116 points. If the Red Team want to stay in the fight for the world titles, they can't afford any more reliability issues!
With passion for racing red,
Iina Huhmarniemi
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