The Saturday in F1 Azerbaijan GP was certainly a hectic one for all involved and the tempers and frustrations were flying high.
The new-for format on Saturday of F1 Azerbaijan GP was finally done and dusted with mixed response continuing to make headlines. Red Bull’s Max Verstappen maintained his stance and he was quite pissed, not just with that but also the Lap 1 incident.
There was no shortage of drama post-sprint in parc ferme when Verstappen confronted Mercedes’ George Russell after a sizable hole on his sidepod was shown on world feed. The Dutchman was angry mostly, while the Brit tried to play down in the media.
In some ways, it was a taste of his own medicine for Verstappen considering the aggressive moves he has pulled out often which is bold of him, but on the receiving end, it wasn’t pleasing. The damage was enough to keep him third as Sergio Perez took the win.
The Mexican steadied his ship and overtook Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc who finally got some points to show for his efforts. He sure had a cat spotted during the safety car period, but that didn’t bring bad omen in terms of retiring or losing Top 3 place.
It will still be big work for him on Sunday, as Carlos Sainz continued his salvage work in a car which isn’t syncing in Baku for him. The Spaniard had some words from Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso, who felt the Ferrari driver pushed him onto the wall.
He finished behind him in sixth and reckoned the FIA stewards should have investigated the move. Apart from that the two did not have much going in the F1 sprint race. They both got through Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton on re-start which wasn’t pleasing for the Brit.
He was satisfied still with the main race on Sunday, while teammate Russell settled for fourth. Alonso’s teammate Lance Stroll had to fight for the last point as he passed Williams’ Alexander Albon after losing out to McLaren’s Lando Norris at one point.
Perez: “Charles had very strong pace initially. And then we had the Virtual and then the Safety Car… Luckily, no red flags! But overall, at the race restart it was important to stay close to Charles. DRS is a lot shorter now, so it was very important to stay within a few tenths only, to be able to make the move. And once I got that move, Charles stayed pretty there on my DRS, so I was keeping a good eye on him and then I was able to slowly pull away. I think I had more pace than what I’ve shown today. But it’s difficult to know because if you use your 100% pace then probably the tyres become a problem, so I think I was just driving to the maximum capacity of the tyre basically. I think all cars are much better than this, but it’s all about looking after the tyres and making sure to arrive to the end.”
Leclerc: “I don’t know how much of a fight it was but I tried my best. We are still lacking some pace in the race. This is definitely where our focus is at the moment, it’s been the case now since quite a bit. So, we are working on that, trying to find something for the races. In Qualifying we seem to be okay. Having said that, I believe we did a step forward. I mean, if you look Australia and here, we are better. We are not yet at the level of Red Bull. So, still a lot of work to do but happier with the car. Basically, once you start with the tyre degradation, that’s where they started to go away, or that Checo started to go away, Max started to come back. So yeah, from that moment onward, we had a little bit of a disadvantage. On the radio call, I said a cat – which is different! There was a cat in the middle of the road and the Safety Car had to stop – but I think I was probably the only one who saw that?”
Verstappen: “It was a bit weird. I mean I, of course, expected a sort-of… well, you expect a balance, but this way the car was jumping around a lot and sliding in some weird places, vibrations. But yeah, I need to look into the data to know exactly, of course, how much damage it did. But it’s not great. And of course, you tried to close the gap a bit, you’re constantly of course in the dirty air and I guess at one point, also my tyres were running a little bit too hot. Regarding the clash, I mean, we definitely got through the corner without him hitting the inside barrier. So, I think I did leave enough space. But I think, apparently, it’s hard to not hit that Red Bull car, I guess. For them. It’s not clarified.
“I just don’t understand why you need to take so much risk, you know, on lap one he just understeers into my sidepod to create a hole. We all have cold tyres, you know, it’s all easy to lock up. And, you know, in his beautiful way of explaining: ‘oh mate, you know, I locked up, oh, look at the onboard.’ Well, it doesn’t make sense. As I said, he’s very good at explaining and creating excuses. Everyone had cold tyres, and I think I had every right to be on the outside. I gave him enough space. But you need two guys to work together to make the corner. Clearly he didn’t.”
Russell: “I don’t really know if it was a chat. I was quite surprised, I thought he was coming over to say ‘good battle’, to be honest. From my side, I was on the inside, the position was already lost from him, and I was really quite surprised he was still trying to hold in round the outside. Ever since we were eight years old in go karting, if you are on the inside on the apex, it’s your corner, and if you try and hold it round the outside, you are taking the risk. I’m here to fight, I’m here to win. I’m not just going to wave him by because he’s Max Verstappen in a Red Bull. [There’s] nothing really more to say. I thought the move was on and that’s about it, really. From my side, the moves were all on.
“If the roles were reversed, I’m sure he would have done exactly the same. It’s part of racing. We’ll move on, we’re big boys, this is Formula 1. I wouldn’t have tried holding it around the outside on lap one of a street circuit. The driver on the inside has got the inside line and the corner is already lost. We always say between us as drivers, if you’re trying to overtake on the outside, you know the risk. Hopefully he’s learned the risk today. There was a lot of Fs and whatnot from his side. He’s got a lot more to lose than me. He could have waited one lap and he would have been straight back past me with their speed. I was ahead of him at the apex [of Turn 1], pretty clean and smooth. It was quite interesting how it just went on for three corners.”
Alonso: “I think I passed Alex and Lewis into Turn 1, but Carlos put me into the wall at the entry of Turn 2 so I had to lift off. If I didn’t lift off, we would [have] both crashed. So I hope that the FIA will look at this now and maybe a top-five is still possible. It was a little damage limitation to be honest, we are not super fast but our main competitors in the Constructors’, which is Mercedes at the moment, they finished only a few points in front of us and [in the race] George is starting 11th so we have an opportunity to outscore them. I think the rules are clear. If you are side-by-side, you cannot go to the side where that car is and squeezing into the wall until they lift off. We don’t need anything, we just need to police it properly.”
Outside the points, Williams’ Albon wasn’t too happy with how the F1 sprint was. He feels that there four teams in the top end and they cover the eight places of points. This then makes little sense for other teams to run with nothing much they can do other than wait.
His teammate Logan Sargeant couldn’t even start after his shootout crash. There were couple who were pleased with how they finished with McLaren’s Oscar Piastri in 10th and Haas’ Kevin Magnussen in 11th where the latter did not have good qualifying.
The Dane felt good with the car when teammate Nico Hulkenberg went backwards after his rear tyres just degraded after few laps. Piastri’s teammate Lando Norris’ gamble on soft tyre didn’t work and he dropped off like stone, forcing him to pit to change tyres.
Alpine’s Pierre Gasly finally had some luck to make up places in 13th but teammate Esteban Ocon seemingly was trying different things to prepare for the race with two pit stops after electing to start from the pitlane with set-up changes.
For Alfa Romeo and AlphaTauri, there wasn’t much joy apart from jam-packed running, especially for the former two drivers. For the latter, the collision hurt Yuki Tsunoda with not just retirement but also a €5,000 fine for unsafe release.
Albon: “I’m on the fence with the Sprint if I’m honest; it’s rewarding the top four teams and they’re already a step ahead of everyone else. It was a great race for us, but we just don’t have the pace compared to them, so unfortunately no reward for today and we’ll shift our focus to tomorrow. It’s frustrating to be sitting out of the points in the sprint when P9 in a normal race would mean points and be an excellent result for us. We were the best of the rest today, so we can take some happiness from that, and know it’s now our job to get closer to the top four.”
Norris: “Not a great Sprint for us today. We took a bit of a gamble and thought the Softs would last a bit longer than they did, but unfortunately, they didn’t. I obviously had to box and in such a short race you can’t make up for it. So, it wasn’t the right decision today, but we learned a lot about the tyres, which puts us in a better position for tomorrow and that is the priority. Full focus now on the Grand Prix.”
Ocon: “It’s been a difficult day for us, but there are positives that we can take from today. It was key for us to change the set-up of the car ahead of the Sprint Race, a collective decision we knew was necessary to give us a better chance this weekend. The car was a lot better this afternoon after our changes, and we were able to collect valuable data, something we’ve unfortunately lacked so far this weekend. It will be a Pit Lane start for me again tomorrow for the Grand Prix but if there is a place where anything can happen it is Baku. We’ll be giving it our all and we’ll be ready to seize any opportunity which may occur in the race.”
Tsunoda: “I just had contact with some driver and I lost my front wing and he just didn’t leave me any space. The front wing got damaged and I didn’t really recognise it and went flat-out [into Turn 14], which usually I do. It was Nyck and I that touched as I was trying to pass. I had no space and after the contact, my front wing was damaged, I understeered into the wall and my race was over. I released a little bit the throttle but I couldn’t control it at all and I went into the wall. But it’s really frustrating. I will try to definitely reset my mindset for tomorrow – and try to score points obviously.”
Here’s the Yuki Tsunoda moment: https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/video.2023-azerbaijan-gp-sprint-tsunoda-triggers-safety-car-after-losing-a-tyre-on-track.1764523913449042555.html
Here’s how F1 Azerbaijan GP sprint race panned out
Here’s how F1 Azerbaijan GP qualifying panned out