Azerbaijan F1 Grand Prix Review

Oscar Piastri now has as many wins in his F1 career as Lando Norris. Neither driver had taken a Grand Prix win before 2024, and now the McLaren duo has four wins to their name and the constructors championship lead. Baku gave us a great race, all set up by an unfortunate incident in qualifying, which happened to involve Lando Norris himself.

Lando was in the middle of setting his final flying lap trying to get into Q2 when a weird yellow flag-white flag-green flag incident occurred where the audience and driver alike were questioning exactly why Lando didn’t set his lap and slowed down in the final sector. Either way, Lando ended up qualifying out of position and started P15 after Lewis Hamilton had a pitlane start.

The main event

Charles Leclerc started on pole and began the race in the lead and held it for quite a while. Eventually, he was overtaken by Piastri. Thus began a battle that would take place for most of the remaining laps. Many, many times, Leclerc would be within DRS and start to catch up on the long final straight causing Piastri to make defensive moves, potentially hurting his Turn 1 entry and exit. But Piastri drove beautifully and the moment wasn’t too big for him. Lap after lap the battle raged on, both drivers pushing their skills and cars to the limits. 

Every so often, Sergio Perez would show up from P3 and make his run at Leclerc, forcing him to not only attack Piastri for the lead but fend of Checo from behind. Slowly but surely, Leclerc’s tyres wore out and Piastri pulled away in the clean air, out of DRS range for the Ferrari. That opened the door for Perez to make a move. Only by now, the second Ferrari of Carlos Sainz was on the scene.

That’s when the race took a huge turn. Perez, who had qualified and raced well, tried to overtake Leclerc at Turn 1 on lap 50, but the Ferrari driver brilliantly defended the move and Sainz was able to overtake Perez. At Turn 2, Sainz went wide and off his usual racing line, allowing Perez to begin to pull alongside him. Sainz attempted to get back onto the normal racing line, but in doing so cut into Perez and slammed both of their cars into the wall. Sadly this ended Sergio’s bounce-back race and Sainz’s podium chances. The race would end under the virtual safety car and George Russell would inherit the final podium spot behind Leclerc and Piastri.

Behind the front fight, Lando Norris had a great recovery drive, making his way up to P4 from P15 after the Perez-Sainz crash. Max Verstappen would finish P5 ahead of Fernando Alonso in P6.

Behind Alonso, Williams had their best race of the year with the pair of Alex Albon and Frano Colapinto finishing P7 and P8. Lewis Hamilton recovered up to P9 after his pitlane start and Ollie Bearman, who became the first-ever F1 driver to score points for two different constructors in their first two F1 races, came in P10.

Behind the points

Nico Hulkenberg was right behind Bearman at P11 followed by Pierre Gasly and Daniel Ricciardo in P12 and P13 respectively. Ricciardo’s VCARB teammate Yuki Tsunoda suffered a DNF early on in the race after contact with Lance Stroll. Stroll himself would suffer the same fate and be the second car to DNF, but lasted much longer than Tsunoda.

Zhou Guanyu had his best finish in a long time, finishing P14 and ahead of his teammate after qualifying last yet again. His Valtteri Bottas was back in P16 behind the Alpine of Esteban Ocon and was in last among the cars still racing by the time the checkered flag flew.

What about the championship?

Had Norris qualified further up the field, it’s likely the crash between Perez and Sainz never would have happened. He might have helped Piastri in his fight or even added another win to his tally and put more pressure on Verstappen. Norris still took a bite out of Verstappen's championship lead, but it was not as big of a bite he needed to take. In a season where McLaren and Norris have suffered so many bits of bad luck and bad strategy, it will be seen as yet another missed opportunity. McLaren now leads the constructors, but the driver’s championship might be out of reach. Only time will tell.

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