Valtteri Bottas scored his second victory of the Formula 1 season and resisted the late charge from Lewis Hamilton to win the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
What a difference 12 months make for Bottas, as he was about to win last year’s race but suffered a late puncture. This time, no issues and held his nerve under pressure to lead Hamilton home and regain the lead of the world championship.
As Mercedes clinched its fourth one-two in four races at the start of the 2019 season, Sebastian Vettel could only finish third again for Ferrari.
Vettel’s teammate Charles Leclerc recovered to fifth position, behind Max Verstappen’s Red Bull, after the qualifying crash that left him ninth on the starting grid.
Hamilton got the better start from the front row but Bottas held on around the outside of the first two corners and then built a strong margin through the rest of the opening lap.
Bottas kept Hamilton at bay until pitting on lap 12, one lap after Vettel and one lap before Hamilton.
That meant Bottas resumed in the race lead, but stopping two laps earlier than Hamilton drew Vettel closer to the other Mercedes.
The pace of the medium compound tyre was stronger than the soft, as demonstrated by Leclerc – who fell to tenth on the first lap but had charged to fourth by lap 10.
Leclerc, on new mediums following his crash in qualifying, assumed the lead when the top three pitted to get rid of their soft Pirelli.
He led the middle portion of the race, managing his pace effectively to stay ahead until Bottas finally got into DRS range and cleared the Ferrari into the first corner on lap 32 of 51.
Hamilton took another lap to get ahead of Leclerc, which gave Bottas more breathing space after Hamilton had reduced the advantage down to almost nothing.
Bottas had a two-second lead to protect once the Mercedes one-two was restored, and Hamilton’s attempts to cut into that were hit when Pierre Gasly ground to a halt and caused a virtual safety car.
Gasly had charged from the pitlane up to a comfortable sixth but his Red Bull, fitted with an upgraded Honda engine for this Baku weekend, had to be parked up on lap 39.
The two-lap VSC also helped Bottas by giving him an extra one second over his pursuers, presumably as it ended in a favourable position for the leader.
Hamilton chipped away at that margin and with three laps to go got within DRS range of his teammate.
Just as Hamilton looked like he might be about to launch a last-lap pass, Bottas picked up DRS himself down the start-finish straight as he lapped the Williams of George Russell.
That top-speed boost put Bottas 1.4 seconds clear as he started the final lap, and he finished it 1.5 seconds ahead to clinch his second win of the season.
Vettel ended up a lonely third, never quite close enough to attack a Mercedes but equally not under threat from Verstappen at the end.
Verstappen had a quietly effective race and looked like he could mount an attack on Vettel but fell away once the VSC period ended.
Leclerc finished almost a minute adrift of Verstappen after a second pitstop for another set of fresh soft tyres, which let him steal the fastest lap bonus point from Bottas.
Sergio Perez earned best-of-the-rest honours for Racing Point, finishing sixth to continue his fine record in Baku.
Though a third Azerbaijan podium was never on the cards, Perez was the class of the midfield after clearing early sixth-place runner Daniil Kvyat and never looked like being challenge.
Carlos Sainz finally scored some points for McLaren with seventh position, but only after twice overhauling teammate Lando Norris.
McLaren celebrated its first double points finish of the season as Norris came home eighth, while Racing Point also got two drivers in the top ten as Lance Stroll clinched ninth.
Kimi Raikkonen scored an unlikely point to keep his record of finishing in the top ten every race this season, despite starting from the pitlane after his Alfa Romeo failed a front wing deflection test.
Among the four retirements were Kvyat and Daniel Ricciardo, who have been summoned to the stewards over a bizarre incident in which Ricciardo reversed into Kvyat trying to get back on track after a failed overtaking attempt at Turn 3.
So congratulations to Valtteri Bottas in winning the race and retaking the championship lead. Super impressed by Mercedes taking another 1-2 finish. That’s four out of four. May that success continue.
Race results, Baku:
1 Valtteri Bottas Mercedes 51 1h31m52.942s
2 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 51 1.524s
3 Sebastian Vettel Ferrari 51 11.739s
4 Max Verstappen Red Bull-Honda 51 17.493s
5 Charles Leclerc Ferrari 51 1m09.107s
6 Sergio Perez Racing Point-Mercedes 51 1m16.416s
7 Carlos Sainz Jr. McLaren-Renault 51 1m23.826s
8 Lando Norris McLaren-Renault 51 1m40.268s
9 Lance Stroll Racing Point-Mercedes 51 1m43.816s
10 Kimi Raikkonen Alfa Romeo-Ferrari 50 1 Lap
11 Alexander Albon Toro Rosso-Honda 50 1 Lap
12 Antonio Giovinazzi Alfa Romeo-Ferrari 50 1 Lap
13 Kevin Magnussen Haas-Ferrari 50 1 Lap
14 Nico Hulkenberg Renault 50 1 Lap
15 George Russell Williams-Mercedes 49 2 Laps
16 Robert Kubica Williams-Mercedes 49 2 Laps
– Romain Grosjean Haas-Ferrari 38 Brakes
– Pierre Gasly Red Bull-Honda 38 Gearbox
– Daniil Kvyat Toro Rosso-Honda 33 Accident damage
– Daniel Ricciardo Renault 31 Accident damage
Drivers’ standings:
1 Valtteri Bottas 87
2 Lewis Hamilton 86
3 Sebastian Vettel 52
4 Max Verstappen 51
5 Charles Leclerc 47
6 Sergio Perez 13
7 Pierre Gasly 13
8 Kimi Raikkonen 13
9 Lando Norris 12
10 Kevin Magnussen 8
11 Nico Hulkenberg 6
12 Carlos Sainz Jr. 6
13 Daniel Ricciardo 6
14 Lance Stroll 4
15 Alexander Albon 3
16 Daniil Kvyat 1
17 Antonio Giovinazzi 0
18 Romain Grosjean 0
19 George Russell 0
20 Robert Kubica 0
Constructors’ standings:
1 Mercedes 173
2 Ferrari 99
3 Red Bull-Honda 64
4 McLaren-Renault 18
5 Racing Point-Mercedes 17
6 Alfa Romeo-Ferrari 13
7 Renault 12
8 Haas-Ferrari 8
9 Toro Rosso-Honda 4
10 Williams-Mercedes 0
Baku race review as reported by Formula1.com.
Valtteri Bottas extended Mercedes’ incredible opening to 2019, enjoying a lights-to-flag victory at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix as the Silver Arrows secured their fourth consecutive one-two of the season.
Sebastian Vettel completed the podium in Baku, Ferrari once again failing to de-stabilise Mercedes despite their apparent straight-line advantage. He was ahead of Max Verstappen, the Red Bull driver maintaining his record of finishing in the top four at every race this year.
Charles Leclerc was next up, meanwhile, the Monegasque recovering decently from his qualifying crash yesterday to take his third fifth place of the year – while a late stop to try and get the extra point for fastest lap paid dividends as he set a new lap record for the track.
Baku specialist Sergio Perez was a strong sixth for Racing Point, ahead of the McLaren pairing of Carlos Sainz and Lando Norris. The second Racing Point of Lance Stroll took ninth, while Kimi Raikkonen made the most of a pit lane start to claim the final points-paying position for Alfa Romeo.
Despite a relatively trouble-free Azerbaijan Grand Prix for much of the field, Daniel Ricciardo recorded his third non-finish of the year after running wide into Turn 3 and then reversing into the stopped car of Daniil Kvyat, who was also forced to retire.
It was Lewis Hamilton who, as in China, got the better start of the two Mercedes drivers off the line in Baku. But whereas in Shanghai, polesitter Bottas had had no answer to Hamilton going into the first corner, here, the Finn wasn’t prepared to let it go, toughing it out around the outside of his team mate through Turn 1 to lead the Mercedes battle, as the rest of the field made their way cleanly through the first lap.
Sergio Perez made his second strong start in a row to slip past Max Verstappen and claim a fourth place that he’d hold onto until Verstappen breezed past him down the straight on Lap 6, while the biggest loser off the start was Charles Leclerc, whose medium tyres lacked the bite of the soft-shod runners all around him. Having started P8 on the grid following his crash in qualifying yesterday, the Monegasque fell down to 10th off the line after getting jumped by the McLaren of Carlos Sainz and the Renault of Daniel Ricciardo.
After that disappointing beginning, though, Leclerc used his Ferrari power to good effect to reel off a series of DRS-assisted overtakes. That meant that, by the time Bottas, Hamilton, Vettel and Verstappen had all pitted to get rid of their soft tyres by Lap 15, it was Leclerc who led the race, as he eked out the tyre life on his yellow-walled rubber, Ferrari appearing to try to cover themselves off in case a Safety Car was called out.
By Lap 30, though, the two Mercedes of Bottas and Hamilton were lurking ominously in Leclerc’s mirrors, with Leclerc’s team mate Sebastian Vettel just three seconds off Hamilton’s rear wing himself. Three laps later, both Mercedes were past and Leclerc was on the phone to Ferrari begging for new softs, which he was given on Lap 35, the 21-year-old emerging in a distant fifth place behind Bottas, Hamilton, Vettel and Verstappen.
Behind, Lap 32 witnessed a bizarre incident when Daniel Ricciardo, still hunting for braking confidence in his Renault R.S.19, locked up and went straight on at Turn 3. Daniil Kvyat had to take avoiding action and pulled up to stop, only for Ricciardo to reverse out of the slip road and straight into the Toro Rosso – the resulting damage putting both cars out, with Ricciardo recording his third DNF in four races.
Then on Lap 40, the man who replaced Ricciardo at Red Bull, Pierre Gasly, was in trouble, as his sixth-placed RB15 ground to a halt, bringing out a Virtual Safety Car, while Gasly’s compatriot Romain Grosjean retired into the Haas garage on the same lap.
When racing resumed, however, and despite nipping at his team mate’s heels, Hamilton was unable to launch a proper challenge against Bottas, who saw out the remaining 10 laps to take his second win of the year, and lead home Mercedes’ fourth straight one-two in 2019.
For Bottas, the result here would have been particularly sweet, given that the Finn was robbed of victory here last year after suffering a puncture while leading with three laps to go.
Sebastian Vettel took his second straight third-place finish, while Charles Leclerc, 30-odd seconds off the lead with three laps to go, made the call to dip into the pits and claim the extra point for fastest lap, adding that to the 10 he took for his fifth-place finish – while he also claimed the Driver of the Day award – while Verstappen was fourth for a third straight race.
Sergio Perez was once again strong at Baku to claim Racing Point’s best finish of the year in sixth, while a McLaren team desperately in need of a good result got one in Azerbaijan, Sainz finishing seventh and taking his first points of the year, with Norris just one place back.
So Mercedes have once again pulled the rabbit out of the hat, defeating Ferrari at a track where, up until Leclerc’s crash in Q2, pole and victory for the Scuderia had seemed assured. But as we prepare to return to Barcelona, the place where Ferrari proved so strong during pre-season testing, can the Scuderia turn it all around, and stop the tide of the Silver Arrows?
Daniel Ricciardo and Daniil Kvyat have been summoned to the stewards for their bizarre incident in Formula 1’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix, when Ricciardo reversed into the Toro Rosso.
Ricciardo attempted to pass Kvyat for 10th place under braking for the Turn 3 left-hander, but misjudged it and ran deep into the corner.
By heading down the escape road, the Renault inadvertently blocked Kvyat, who was trying to make the corner from the outside.
Kvyat had to wait until the Renault had disappeared from his inside from before turning into the left-hander, but had to stop as he ran out of room.
As he tried to engage reverse so he could move back and then continue, Ricciardo moved backwards down the escape road and drove into Kvyat.
The damage incurred forced both drivers to retire and race control communicated that the incident would be investigated after the race.
Ricciardo and Kvyat, plus representatives for their teams, have now been summoned to the stewards at 18:30 local time.
Source: Motorsport.com
Pre-season favourites Ferrari have yet to win in the past four races and Sebastian Vettel says the Scuderia needs a “crucial” turnaround in Spain, scene of the next Grand Prix and testing. Motorsport.com has the news story.
Sebastian Vettel thinks it is now “crucial” that Ferrari turns things around against Mercedes at the next race in Spain after its latest Formula 1 defeat.
Ferrari again showed the potential speed to fight for the win at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, but a crash for Charles Leclerc in qualifying and difficulties on the soft tyre for Vettel left the door open for the fourth straight Mercedes 1-2 finish.
With third-placed finisher Vettel and Ferrari falling further back in the world championship standings, he is aware that the team needs to do better in the next race in Spain – as it returns to the track where it shone in winter testing.
“Obviously the last four races on average we were not quite there, [and] we are not the favourites going to Barcelona,” said Vettel.
“But the team is in good spirits. We have another couple of stuff [updates] getting on the car so.. we need to chase them [Mercedes] down.
“We are looking forward to a smooth weekend because our first four weekends haven’t been that smooth. It will be crucial to catch them and turn things around.”
Vettel said his Baku race was effectively killed off by a slow opening stint where he could not get the soft tyres in to the right operating window.
“The first stint was really poor, I really struggled to initially get the tyres to work,” he said. “They were too cold and then I damaged them, and then they were hot and they were damaged. They were never really working.
“I was really uncomfortable and inconsistent, and I couldn’t get a feel or confidence with the car That is usually not so good around here
“After that, I was surprised, I was looking forward to a difficult stint on the medium tyres but no problems to switch them on and they lasted until the end with no problem. Much happier and much more confidence and I think we had some pace to go with them, sometimes put a bit of pressure.”
Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton admitted he was “too friendly” with Valtteri Bottas at the start of the race. Motorsport.com has the details.
Lewis Hamilton reckons he was “too friendly” against teammate Valtteri Bottas at the first corner, as he labelled his Azerbaijan Grand Prix performance as “under par”.
Hamilton made a good getaway from second on the grid to pull alongside pole position man Bottas on the run to Turn 1, as the pair ran around the first corners side-by-side.
Bottas eventually managed to get in front, and Hamilton suggested he could have made life tougher on a weekend when his teammate had the upper hand.
“I didn’t get the job done in qualifying, he [Bottas] did,” Hamilton told Sky. “And then in the race I was too friendly at Turn 1 and basically gave it to him.
“He drove a fantastic race and made no mistakes so he deserved the win this weekend.”
Hamilton said that considering Baku is not one of his favourite circuits he was happy to have come through the weekend with Mercedes having taken a 1-2 finish.
“This is not our strongest race of the season. This has always been a difficult race for me so this is a really good result considering,” he said.
“It was a fantastic result for the team. Valtteri did an exceptional job this weekend and truly deserves the win. It was a but of an under-par performance from myself so I just need to work hard.
“It is not I don’t enjoy [it], I just struggle here. There are certain races I struggle and then there are others [where I don’t] and I can’t really point it out. I got quicker at the end but it was too late by then.”
Although Hamilton got within DRS range of Bottas near the end of the race, his teammate said that he never felt the win was going to be lost.
The Finn said: “It was actually a tough race even though there was not that much happening at the front.
“Lewis was putting me under pressure all the time so I couldn’t do any mistakes, but honestly everything was under control so I am happy to see the chequered flag.”
Daniel Ricciardo has been given a three-place grid penalty for the next race in Spain after reversing in to Daniil Kvyat in the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
Late in the race Ricciardo had attempted to pass Kvyat for 10th place under braking for Turn 3, but misjudged the move and slid down the escape road.
In doing so, that forced Kvyat wide and the Toro Rosso driver also ended up in the run-off area, sitting right behind the Renault.
In Ricciardo’s haste to get going, and unaware his rival was behind him, he instantly reversed and then hit Kvyat’s car, damaging the Russian’s floor.
The FIA ruled that Ricciardo was guilty of causing a collision and handed him a three-place grid penalty for the Spanish Grand Prix, as well as having two penalty points added to his licence.
Ricciardo apologised to Kvyat after the race for what happened, as he explained that he had reversed without looking in a ‘panic’ to get back on track.
“I obviously don’t feel good about what happened,” Ricciardo told Sky. “At the time it was looking quite good for us. We were starting to pick up the pace and obviously closing in on Daniil.
“I saw a gap and thought I would have a go. It is always tight into Turn 3, and initially I thought I had the commitment and would pull it off. Then I felt it was starting to lock and I missed the corner.
“At that point as soon as I went down the escape road, it was just I guess a sense of urgency and a bit of panic if you will – and try to minimise damage and lose as little time as possible.
“I found reverse and started going and to be honest I had no idea he was there. I guess the urgency stopped me from looking.”
Source: Motorsport.com
Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen thinks that the VSC period cost him the chance to score a podium. Motorsport.com has the details.
Max Verstappen believes he lost any Azerbaijan Grand Prix podium chance because his Red Bull-Honda Formula 1 car was too sensitive to tyre temperature after the virtual safety car period.
Verstappen finished fourth in Baku, having been gaining on the race-leading Mercedes and Sebastian Vettel’s third-placed Ferrari before the VSC caused by his teammate Pierre Gasly parking in an escape road.
“I was catching up seven/eight seconds over that stint, so that was all good, but as soon as we got to the virtual safety car, I lost a lot of temperature,” said Verstappen.
“It seems like our car is a maybe a bit more sensitive to that, or we’re just not on top of the tyres. I don’t know – otherwise we would’ve of course fixed that.
“It was a lot more difficult after that, I was just sliding a lot, and around here if you don’t have the grip, you can’t take the risk into the corner and you lose a lot of laptime.”
He believes the issue was specific to the Baku track conditions rather than being a fundamental Red Bull weakness.
“I think it’s just something on this track where it’s already very slippery, it seems like we are just not on top of it yet,” said Verstappen.
Verstappen was the last of the eventual top four to make a pitstop in the first part of the race.
“Maybe it was too late. But on the other hand, I was also catching them a lot in the end,” he said. “It was all looking good for us, if there was no virtual safety car – but that you can never plan.”
Red Bull ordered Verstappen to avoid the Turn 16 kerb in the final part of the race.
“I think Pierre had a driveshaft failure, that’s why they told me to stay off the kerbs, just to minimise the angle on it,” he replied when asked about the instruction by Motorsport.com.
“And then also the last few laps I just stayed off all kerbs, but of course in the infield it’s a lot of laptime. But anyway I didn’t have the grip anymore. I knew I was going to be fourth anyway.”
Red Bull Racing slowed Max Verstappen amid driveshaft failure fears that could have cost valuable championship points. Motorsport.com has the news story.
Max Verstappen’s bid for third place in the Azerbaijan Grand Prix was reined in as a precautionary response to his Red Bull Formula 1 teammate Pierre Gasly’s driveshaft failure.
Gasly suffered a driveshaft failure after charging from the pitlane to sixth, and his stopped car triggered a virtual safety car just as Verstappen was mounting more pressure on Sebastian Vettel.
After the VSC period ended, Verstappen struggled with tyre temperatures and fell away from Vettel, but Red Bull had also told him to back off to avoid a potential repeat problem.
“We struggled a little bit to get the warm-up going again, but after the failure that we’d seen with Pierre we didn’t want to take too much risk,” Red Bull team principal Christian Horner explained.
“It was a driveshaft failure and we don’t know why, so having seen that we didn’t want to take any unnecessary risks with Max. His third P4 in a row, it’s always frustrating when you’re the first place off the podium, but I thought he had a strong race today.”
Verstappen was given a message to avoid the kerb on the exit of Turn 16, where he had run wide earlier in the race.
Asked by Motorsport.com if there were any other measures, Horner said: “We turned things down a little bit so as not to put as much energy through the drive lines. Obviously up until the VSC he looked in pretty decent shape.”
Verstappen finished 5.7s behind Vettel and almost a minute clear of the second Ferrari of Charles Leclerc, who stopped for new soft tyres after the VSC to set the fastest lap of the race.
Horner said chasing that bonus point was not an option for Verstappen, which was another reason to remain cautious following Gasly’s failure.
“If it had been a normal safety car he would have stopped,” said Horner when asked how strongly the team considered pitting Verstappen under the VSC. “But with it being a VSC it didn’t really make any sense.
“He didn’t have any new soft tyres available to go for the fastest lap. So looking at it with the reliability, we thought did we really want to put an extra load through the driveshaft for one point, which might cost us 12? It didn’t make any sense.”
This was another disappointing race for Ferrari and Sebastian Vettel admits the tyres are the “dominating factor” in Ferrari struggles. Motorsport.com has the full details.
Sebastian Vettel believes Ferrari’s struggles to make its tyres work properly is the more “dominating factor” in its Formula 1 car’s performance being held back, rather than an aerodynamic weakness.
Vettel, who had praised Ferrari’s upgraded car during practice, finished third in Baku and now trails new championship leader Valtteri Bottas by 35 points.
Asked by Motorsport.com if his confidence in the upgrades Ferrari brought to Azerbaijan remained following the race performance, Vettel said: “Absolutely, I think it was a step forward with our car, but more of a dominating factor is how we seem to be able to get on top or into these tyres.
“There’s a lot of performance in that. I think the struggle we had here and there in low-speed corners is less of an aero problem, it’s more of a mechanical grip issue. A lot of homework for us, the last couple of weeks.
“I’m sure once we get everything together the car is strong and then we will be much more in the fight. But at this stage, averaging the first four races, we were just not quick enough.”
Vettel lost ground to the Mercedes duo in the first stint on soft tyres, but an earlier pitstop allowed him to hack into the gap and run two-to-three seconds behind for the majority of the rest of the race.
However, Ferrari’s struggles getting the most out of its tyres hurt him again after a virtual safety car as he could not get his mediums up to temperature.
“In the first stint we really struggled to follow, it was quite difficult to find a rhythm, and difficult to extract grip from the tyres,” he said.
“I expected it to be a long and tough afternoon. After the stop the car was quite good, I was able to push and I think we stayed with them.
“The blue flags were not particularly lucky, the places around the track, I saw Lewis had some quite good tows with lapped cars here and there but what goes around comes around.
“Overall the second stint was better for us and the first one we lost all the potential to put pressure on at the beginning of the race.”
Ferrari Formula 1 driver Charles Leclerc says his muted pace in the closing laps of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix was not representative, dismissing suggestions that his SF90 was struggling on softs.
After crashing in qualifying, Leclerc charged from ninth place on the fresh set of mediums in the opening stages, snatching fourth from Max Verstappen on the ninth lap and assuming the lead once the three cars ahead pitted.
His pace advantage didn’t hold up and, once he traded his mediums for a new set of softs with 16 laps to go, he emerged from the pits almost half a minute down on the race-leading Mercedes of Valtteri Bottas.
Despite running on a softer and fresher tyre than the cars in front, he made no inroads into the gap and instead dropped back – eventually pitting again for another set of tyres and making sure of the fastest lap point on the penultimate lap by over a second.
“I think a lot of people thought we were struggling,” said Leclerc when asked about his perceived poor pace on softs. “I don’t think we were, because I just didn’t push to try and close the gap, because I asked on the radio pretty early in this run whether there was any possibility to come back to the guys in front, and the answer was no, because the gap was too big.
“So then from that moment onwards it was just about trying to keep the tyres and try to push for the fastest lap when I had the opportunity to do so.
“So, yeah, don’t look at the pace from when we put the softs, it’s not our real pace, we were just trying to do the best lap.”
Leclerc said his early-race charge and overtake on Verstappen did not fool him into believing that a much better result was suddenly on the cards.
“Obviously in the car you’re always optimistic, otherwise you lose hope and it’s not good. You always hope for something better.
“But also realistically we were on a different strategy, it was not meaning anything at that stage of the race, I knew the race would be very long and I just focused on myself, to be as quick possible on this medium run.”
The Monegasque had begun to struggle on his mediums towards the end of his stint, having slipped behind Bottas, Lewis Hamilton and teammate Sebastian Vettel.
When he eventually pitted, he emerged behind the Red Bull of Pierre Gasly and lost time passing the Frenchman.
Asked about the timing of Leclerc’s pitstop, team boss Mattia Binotto said: “Something we already discussed together in our, let’s say, post-race debrief, certainly maybe yes, could’ve been a different gamble, maybe stopping earlier on that tyres or trying really to last very long on the medium.
“But I think you may always discuss different solutions at the end of the race looking back. I think overall what we did was nothing wrong.”
Source: Motorsport.com