Azerbaijan GP 2024: Piastri Triumphs in Baku as Late Drama Shakes Up the Podium
Round 17 is over and we say goodbye to the City of Wind and the Land of Fire for another year, what a race it produced for us though, there was action all over the field and it kept me on the edge of my couch for all 51 laps of it.
We start by looking at the starting grid as we had some changes from Qualifying as we see Lewis Hamilton and Esteban Ocon having to start from the pitlane given that Hamilton and Mercedes decided to take a new engine and did a suspension change while Ocon and Alpine changed some PU elements without notifying the FIA. This promoted Lando Norris to 15th from 17th and also brough Oliver Bearman into 10th and into the points. Most drivers on the grid opt to start on the medium tyre with a few exceptions across the grid, opting to go long and went for the hard tyres.
At lights out we see Charles Leclerc get an amazing start and manages to hold off any challengers behind him and goes into Turn 1 in 1st, behind him Sergio Perez had a good start as well as he managed to get past Carlos Sainz by Turn 2 to get into 3rd as Oscar Piastri manages to stay in 2nd. Piastri’s teammate, Lando Norris was also able to pull a couple moves on Lap 1 as he managed to get to 13th by the end of the lap which was a good start on the big race, he had ahead of him. Lance Stroll had contact with Yuki Tsunoda at Turn 4 on Lap 1 and picked up a puncture who had to pit at the end of lap 1 to change his tyres. Tsunoda on the other hand picked up substantial damage to the sidepod and started going backwards until VCARB called him into the pits on Lap 16 to retire the car due to the damage he picked up. This incident was classed as a racing incident as there was no penalties handed out to anyone.
At the front on Lap 3 we see Piastri keeping within DRS to Leclerc and keeping the pressure up on the Ferrari driver but Leclerc was doing a great job defending as by Lap 6 he was still managing to keep Piastri behind and by Lap 7 Leclerc managed to get Piastri out of DRS and he was able to put his head down and manage the pace. Back to the 2 Brits who started from further back as we see Norris managing to clear Tsunoda on Turn 2 and then cleared Nico Hulkenberg by Turn 3 on the same lap On Lap 6 Norris also gets a message asking how the tyres are doing and at the time Norris said that they are doing ok which would have been good information for the team given that himself and Piastri were on split strategies. On Lap 8 Norris also managed to make it up into the points as he overtakes Bearman into Turn 1. Hamilton by Lap 4 was able to get himself up in 15th from 19th which was quite a good run for him.
At Red Bull, Max Verstappen wasn’t having the best of races as he reports that he has zero bite in the car indicating a lack of grip. And on Lap 11 we start seeing the first of the actual strategy pits as we see Franco Colapinto come into the pits from 8th and comes out in 15th, a lap later we see Aston Martin respond and they pitted Fernando Alonso to cover off the undercut which worked as he comes out in 14th ahead of Colapinto. On Lap 13 Verstappen does get called in to get rid of the mediums and get on the hards and so does George Russell who comes in on the same lap and the pair come in from 5th and 6th and come out in 10th and 12th as both don’t have the fastest stop. Hamilton also followed his teammate for a Mercedes double stack as the pair had enough time between them on track and Hamilton comes back out in 18th. Perez also finally comes in on Lap 15 to come back out in 6th from 3rd.
At this stage of the race, Norris had made it up to 5th but is yet to pit and he would be banking on a safety car to get a cheap stop. On Lap 15 we also see some great racing into Turn 1 between George Russell, Dainiel Ricciardo and Pierre Gasly as we see the 3 going nearly 3 wide as Gasly and Russell overtake Ricciardo and then Russell saw the opportunity and also took Gasly by Turn 2. Back to Norris, on Lap 16 we hear McLaren ask him to try and hold off Perez in order to aid his teammate Piastri as the team pit Piastri on Lap 16 and manages to come out 6 tenths ahead of Perez which was all due to his teammates help. Charles Leclerc also comes in a lap later to cover off Piastri and comes back out in 2nd behind his teammate Sainz who at this stage was yet to pit who came on Lap 17 to get back out of the way and comes back out in 6th.
Round 17 Baku GP: Piastri Holds Off Leclerc, Perez and Sainz Collide, Norris Gains in Title Fight
On Lap 17 we see Oscar Piastri overtake Alex Albon to get back into 2nd as at this stage Albon was still out on the starting set, he started the race on and a lap later we also see Perez pull the same move on Albon to get back into 3rd. This is where the action started as on Lap 19, we see Piastri go for a late dive into Turn 1 on Leclerc and manages to get past and also hold the lead by Turn 3 after the 2nd DRS zone, Perez also managed to get very close due to this battle and at this stage we had a 3 way battle for the lead. On Lap 22 we hear Leclerc come on the radio asking if McLaren are pushing like crazy, but the team asks him to keep doing what he is doing as he was doing a good job.
On Lap 21 we hear Norris on the radio saying that at this stage he is starting to struggle with the tyres as he was chasing Albon for a good few laps and couldn’t manage the overtake due to the straight line speed of Williams, so much so that on Lap 23 he was overtaken by Sainz as he was on fresher tyres and Sainz also goes ahead to overtake Albon a lap later. At this stage however we see Verstappen catching up to Norris and given that this is a fight for the championship we see Norris defend quite hard against him into Turns 1 and 3 and manages to keep him behind. On Lap 31 Norris was still behind Albon as he reports that he still can’t overtake but Verstappen was still stuck behind Norris as Verstappen also reported on Lap 25, he is having brake issues as on that lap we see him cut Turn 15 as he couldn’t slow down in time. On Lap 31, McLaren ask Norris to come into the pits but in the last minute they ask him to stay out.
On Lap 22 we see Colapinto make it back into the points as he overtakes Gasly with a nice move into Turn 1. At the front we see Piastri doing well defending against Leclerc and nearly got Leclerc out of DRS, on Lap 28 though Leclerc manages to close in again and is still on the back of Piastri but can’t find a way past the McLaren which will be hurting his tyres and had a look into Turn 1 but Piastri covers off the inside. Leclerc tries again on Lap 31 but again, Piastri sees it coming and closes the door early. On Lap 33 Leclerc again tries a move but Piastri once again sees this coming, and all this battling allowed Perez to close in and now is back in the fight for the battle for the win.
A bit further back on Lap 32 we see Russell attempt a move on Verstappen and both go side by side into Tur 1 but Russell had to back off to avoid a collision Russell however took a lap to recharge and on Lap 34 he was able to get past Verstappen into Turn 1 this time before they had to Turn. On Lap 32 we see Alex Albon finally pit to get rid of his hards and get on the mediums, he pits from 5th and comes out in 11th. On Lap 35 we see Hulkenberg in a Williams sandwich for the battle for points but on Lap 36 we see Hulkenberg get into the points as he makes it past Colapinto, Williams don’t waste too much time to swap their drivers as Albon was on a quicker tyre and Colapinto immediately finds himself in a spot of bother as he has Bearman right on the back of his car.
On Lap 35 the battle out front was still going and Piastri gets a radio message saying that Leclerc is struggling more than him on the rear however his fronts look better. Despite this, Leclerc was still getting positive radio messages as he was doing a good job. Ferrari do attempt to trick McLaren with a fake call to Leclerc to the pits telling him to box opposite McLaren but this unfortunately didn’t work but on Lap 38 we do see Lando Norris come into the pits from 5th and manages to come out in 7th ahead of Fernando Alonso and 15 seconds behind Verstappen on Fresh mediums so the race was on now for Norris.
On Lap 40 Leclerc thinks he’s seeing the light at the end as he reports that Piastri is starting to struggle which is exactly what he wanted to see to get an extra boost of confidence, and we do see Leclerc get much closer but again Piastri puts up a good defence. Norris on the other hand gets a message on Lap 40 saying “Imagine you have Andrea on your shoulder saying no wheelspin on every corner” in an attempt to give Norris the best chance on getting Verstappen. At the front all this battling between Leclerc and Piastri allowed once again for Perez to close in, and he is looking to at least get into 2nd place, and to make things more interesting on Lap 43 we see them approaching the back markers, so things were about to get interesting for them.
On Lap 45 we do see Norris closing in on Verstappen, lap on lap and we get a display saying that he will be in striking distance to Max in 4 laps which brings us to the closing laps of the race. Joining the front party was Sainz who also started closing in on Perez and Leclerc was hoping this would happen sooner rather than later so he can maybe get Perez off the back of him as soon as possible given that Leclerc had just dropped out of DRS from Piastri as his tyres has had enough. This was all happening and Piastri took full advantage as on Lap 47 he opened the gap to Leclerc to 1.4 seconds and now could focus a bit on finishing the last few laps.
Lap 48, Leclerc also reports he has no rears, and this was quite visible as the gap to Piastri was getting bigger and the gap between Leclerc and Perez was getting smaller and Leclerc had to start thinking about defending. On Lap 49 we do see Norris overtake Verstappen into Turn 1 which was mighty crucial for his battle with Max for the drivers championships which at the time he also held the fastest lap as well.
The big drama happened on Lap 50 as we see Perez line up an attach on Leclerc, it was all looking good for Perez, but Leclerc defended the corner very well and this put Perez out of shape to allow Sainz attack him into Turn 2 which he did. On the run to Turn 3 we see Perez and Sainz very close to each other and they in fact touch and crash into the wall ending both their races. This brought the VSC out and the race finished under the VSC securing 2nd for Leclerc as no one could overtake under the VSC.
Oscar Piastri comes round to take the chequered flag followed by Charles Leclerc, George Russell, Lando Norris, Max Verstappen, Fernando Alonso, Alex Albon, Franco Colapinto, Lewis Hamilton and Oliver Bearman forming the Top 10. Piastri drove an immense 2nd stint to secure that win and hold Leclerc off and this earned him the driver of the day award. Lando Norris managed to keep the fastest lap for that extra crucial point in the drivers championship. McLaren also take the lead in the constructors championship and the title is theirs to lose now as Red Bull are going through some struggles. Key to point out that Oliver Bearman managed to get points for his 2nd consecutive F1 race, this time for Haas though his future team as last time was round Saudi Arabia in the Ferrari when he filled in for Sainz. Franco Colapinto also gets points on his 2nd race after he was very close last time out.
Who do you think was the biggest winners and the biggest losers of the Azerbaijan GP? We head now to Singapore next weekend for Round 18.
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