Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan on the coast of the Caspean Sea, hosted round six on the F1 calendar. Baku could be described as a combination of Monaco, the legendary street circuit, and Monza, the Temple of Speed. During its four-year history, the GP has seen four different winners, starting from Nico Rosberg in 2016.
The qualifying session was dramatic and fragmented due to multiple red flags. Only four minutes of the first session had been completed, as Aston Martin's Stroll ended up into the wall in Turn 15. After aged flag the session was resumed only shortly, as Alfa Romeo's Giovinazzi was the next casualty in the very same corner. So there were two red flags in Q1 already! There were three teams in the mix of the fight for pole: Red Bull, Mercedes and Ferrari.
Once again Mercedes had it difficult to get the tyres up into the optimal temperature. The Silver Arrows needed two warm-up laps to deliver. The second session was red-flagged due to McLaren's Ricciardo, as there were one and a half minute remaining in the clock. The Australian ended up into the wall in Turn 3, and Q2 wasn't resumed. It was a surprise, that Bottas was down in P9 in the sister Mercedes. On the other hand, AlphaTauri's Tsunoda proceeded into the final segment for the first time in his F1 career.
Ferrari's pace proved extremely competitive at Baku. Charles took provisional pole by two tenths to Hamilton, who benefitted from the slip stream by his teammate. Verstappen was third and AlphaTauri's Gasly surprise fourth. Similar to the two previous sessions, Q3 saw a red flag as well. This time it was brought up by Tsunoda, who crashed into the wall in the familiar Turn 15, ruining his competitors' final runs. This meant, that Charles was on pole for the second time in a row! Hamilton was happy to be second, as Mercedes had been struggling with grip all weekend, and Verstappen, on the contrary, was extremely disappointed to be third. Gasly was fourth and Sainz in the sister Ferrari was fifth. Norris qualified sixth for McLaren and Perez seventh for Red Bull. Unbelievable but true, Bottas was left 10th in the sister Mercedes!
Lights turned out, and the fifth Azerbaijan GP saw a surprisingly clean start. Pole-setter Leclerc held on to his lead, with Hamilton second and Verstappen third. Perez in the sister Red Bull took an impressive start and moved up two positions by overtaking both Ferrari's Sainz and AlphaTauri's Gasly. However, it instantly became obvious, that the Scuderia weren't able to match Red Bull's and Mercedes' race pace. On lap 3 Hamilton opened his DRS and moved ahead of Charles, taking the lead. Verstappen followed his rival's example a few laps later. Charles was in trouble with his missing race pace, and Red Bull's Perez, too overtook the Monegasque. Charles was the first top driver to pit on lap 10 already. Expectedly he rejoined the track on white-walled hard Pirellis.
Hamilton proved unable to run away from the two Red Bulls. Max was within striking distance from the Briton, and Perez in third was only 2.5 seconds down. Mercedes opened the pit stop roulette in terms of the two top teams by calling Hamilton and Bottas in on the very same lap. Hamilton's stop was a bit delayed, which benefitted the energy drink team. Both Verstappen and Perez got ahead of Hamilton, as they pitted and rejoined the track on hard rubber.
Towards the halfway point of the race, Verstappen had a 5-second lead to his teammate. Hamilton in third was 7 seconds off the pace already. Aston Martin's Stroll, who had started to the race on the hard Pirellis from P19, was now fourth in the race. If there was a safety car, the Canadian would be the one to benefit from that. Ironically, it was Stroll himself, who brought out safety car on lap 31. Speeding down the start/finish straight, Stroll suddenly suffered a rear left puncture, which threw him into the wall with heavy impact. Luckily he got away from the shunt unharmed, but the straight was covered with debris from his car.
Restart took place some five laps later. Hamilton was hungry to challenge Perez for the second place, but his effort wasn't quite enough. Ex Ferrari ace Vettel managed to get past his old teammate Leclerc, moving up to P5. And he wasn't to settle with that position. The German attacked AlphaTauri's Gasly and deprived the Frenchman of P4. It was great to see "the good old Vettel" back!
There was another dramatic turn to change the course of the race. With only five laps to go, race leader Verstappen was hit with a sudden puncture on the start/finish straight in full speed! It was rear left tyre, which blew out, similar to Stroll. Max was in the wall with the nose of his RB16B absolutely wrecked. A confident win turned into a bitter disappointment in just seconds. Understandably Max was furious and aggressively kicked the blown rear left tyre. The race was red-flagged with only two more laps to go! The cars were to return to the pit lane. Perez was now leading the race, with Hamilton second and Vettel third!
After half an hour suspension there was to be a standing start. And what a dramatic turning point the start turned out. Hamilton immediately took the battle to Perez, but apparently the Briton activated a wrong set up by hitting something he called "a magic button" and he ended up hugely wide in Turn 1, which meant dropping down to the back of the pack. Perez held on to his lead, and Sebastian was now second. Charles and Gasly had a fiery wheel-to-wheel battle for P3, with Gasly finally taking the upper hand on the Ferrari ace.
Perez drove to the chequered flag as the race winner for the second time in his F1 career. Sebastian brought Aston Martin on the podium for the first time, and delighted Gasly completed the podium. Amazingly, both Mercedes were out of points, Bottas in P12 and Hamilton in P16. This meant, that the drivers' standings remained unchanged in terms of Verstappen and Hamilton, who were both left out of points. Red Bull, on the other hand, extended their lead into 26 points in the constructors' standings. Ferrari are now third in the constructors' standings, with 92 points to McLaren's 88.
Pirelli definitely have some homework to do, before the F1 circus moves to France next week. Then it will be a triple-header coming! Forza Ferrari!
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