Luke’s Weekend Take – Azerbaijan GP 2023

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Exploring the Changes to the F1 Sprint Weekend Format and a Recap of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix Qualifying: Reliability Issues, Turn 3 Drama, and More

Azerbaijan Weekend Take

The past 3 weeks felt longer than the winter break, I was at a loss over the weekends finding myself not sure what to do. What did you get up to? I can tell you that the FIA spent these 3 weeks deliberating on Sprint Weekend format only to announce the changes last minute in an F1 Commission meeting this week. Do you agree with the changes done to the sprint weekend or do you prefer the old Sprint weekend format?

Will the Azerbaijan GP bring the usual drama and excitement to this year’s race, or will it be a Red Bull show like the rest of the races so far? Alpine had a poor start to the weekend on Friday with Pierre Gasly and Esteban Ocon both missing out on the bulk of FP1 after Gasly’s car caught on fire after a hydraulic issue which forced him to retire for the rest of the session giving the Alpine mechanics a run for their money to get the car ready for qualifying on Friday afternoon. The whole team came together with Ocon’s mechanics also giving a hand with the repairs, but it was all in vain after Gasly outbroke himself in Q1 and hitting the barrier wall of turn 3 bringing out the 2nd Red Flag in Qualifying.

Pierre Gasly wasn’t the only victim of Turn 3 where we saw Nyck de Vries hit the barriers head on after locking up after the long straight which caused the first red flag for qualifying which halted the session for everyone. Personally, I was expecting to see someone have a moment with Turn 15 and the closest we got to that is when Yuki Tsunoda brushed the barriers with both wheels escaping any damage to his Alpha Tauri. I’m sure we haven’t seen the last of Turn 15 though as I’m sure there will be some interesting moments throughout both races this weekend.

Taking a look at reliability issues there were plenty of radio messages going on in FP1 and Qualifying today from Kevin Magnussen having to retire in FP1 due to Loss of power which was a result of a fuel pump failure which wasn’t fully fixed for Qualifying where we saw Kevin Magnussen being outqualified by his teammate Nico Hülkenberg for the 4th time this season due to Magnussen still having some sort of power loss issues.

Mercedes weren’t untouched with reliability themselves as we saw both Sir Lewis Hamilton and George Russell complaining about brake issues in FP1 and with Parc Fermé being enforced in just 60 mins, Mercedes had to ensure to sort these issues out ahead of qualifying. During qualifying we saw Russell not managing to get out of Q2 losing out to his teammate Lewis Hamilton by just 0.004 and will be starting the race on Sunday in 11th place. After narrowly making it into Q3, Hamilton managed a respectable 5th place behind the Red Bulls and Ferraris even though he was nearly a second off the pace from Pole. We saw the return of James Allison as Technical Director after a swap 20 months ago, Mercedes will hope that James can get them back to their winning ways after they hopefully sort the aero out on their current W14 F1 car.

The Prancing Horse Team Ferrari seem to have a good package for the weekend and have so far shown great pace with Charles Leclerc snatching pole position from Max Verstappen like he did last year, but will Max have the last laugh and end up winning the race again this year-round? After a small moment in Turn 1 during Q1, Carlos Sainz managed to qualify in 4th place, matching his best qualifying position in Azerbaijan last year.  

Will Fernando Alonso Keep Up His Podium Finish Streak in Baku, Or Will Taylor Swift's Rumored Relationship Distract Him from Beating Red Bull's Dominance? Qualifying Results and Race Preview Inside

Will Fernando Alonso be able to continue his podium finish streak he has going on this season with Aston Martin, or do Ferrari and Mercedes have a better package around Baku where we might see Alonso struggle a bit to keep up on the straights? Alonso managed to qualify in 6th place for the race on Sunday where I’m expecting a brilliant start from the Spaniard making a few places by turn 1. His teammate Lance Stroll only managed to qualify in 9th place but was not too far off Alonso’s pace. However biggest rumour going round the paddock about Alonso is that he might be involved in an intimate relationship with Taylor Swift. Alonso has not commented on this at all when questioned about it but had his cheeky grin when asked about it. What do you think? Will Taylor Swift have to write an album about Alonso if it doesn’t go well?

Despite Leclerc taking pole for the race on Sunday we can see that the Red Bulls of Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez are not too far behind on pace where the pair managed to qualify 2nd and 3rd respectively. Red Bull always seem to save the best car for race day and I’m sure that Max will not find it a challenge to overtake Leclerc on Sunday and run away with the win given this year’s pace on the Red Bull.

In Qualifying we also saw Logan Sargeant making it out of Q1 for the first time in his Formula 1 career where he then managed to qualify in 15th place where his teammate Alex Albon managed to qualify in 13th place for the race on Sunday. The Papaya team Mclaren also seem to have sorted their package slightly where we say both Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri qualifying in the top 10 where they will be starting in 7th and 10th place respectively in the race on Sunday.

We will have it all to play for again tomorrow where we will have the first qualifying shootout for the Sprint tomorrow where we will see teams being forced by the FIA to use the Medium tyre for Q1 and Q2 and the Soft tyre will be used for Q3. Let’s hope for a good weekend of racing and not too many Red Flags although I think it is inevitable in Baku not to have a Red Flag come out given it has the narrowest section on the F1 Calendar making it very dangerous to drive round.

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