Dre’s Race Review: F1’s 2024 Azerbaijan Grand Prix

“And this time, he doesn’t have to swap for it!”

Baku is a funny old race. For me, it’s the ultimate boom-or-bust F1 race. It’s one of the nastiest and trickiest technical tracks on the calendar, but it either produces theatrical action or is a complete stinker and a processional affair. This weekend, thankfully, we got the former as Oscar Piastri straight up outraced Baku’s fastest street sweeper Charles Leclerc, and a shocking final flashpoint ruins what was Sergio Perez’s best weekend since Jeddah. Let’s get into it. 

Under Pressure

It was all coming up Milhouse for Charles Leclerc. Dominated qualifying to take his fourth straight pole position. He held off fellow front-row sitter Piastri at Turn 1 as the Australian had another sub-optimal start, with Baku’s lack of a run to the first left-hander saving him from an attack by Checo. Charles had held off Piastri on the medium tyre and even pulled away by a few seconds as Perez’s early stop had forced the field to blink. Due to Lando Norris being off-sequence and Charles being awful in firing up his hards, the gap had evaporated as Leclerc had to now fight off an even stronger Piastri on the hard tyre. 

Piastri sends one down the inside of Turn 1 a couple of laps later to take the lead, and that’s when the real story of the race played out. Piastri for the next 30 laps would not be able to break Leclerc behind him, and Charles would every few laps, get within 0.6 of a second on the back straight, but every time he got near, Piastri would slam the door and defend successfully, whether it be via a late swipe or saving just enough battery for that final 200m in the run-up to the corner. However you want to describe it, it worked. 

It eventually brought Perez and Carlos Sainz back into play, but Piastri held on, refusing to give an inch to Leclerc, until eventually with eight or so laps to go, Leclerc’s rear tyres had completely gone, unable to stay with Piastri, who was getting enough power down on corner exit to eventually break away from that one-second lead, despite Charles often being strongest through the Castle and down the hill towards Sector 3.

And this led to our final flashpoint – Two laps to go, Leclerc’s rears are shot and Perez is mounting pressure on an attack for second. Perez tries a lunge and backs out at the apex, Sainz gets him around the outside, but then makes an over-zealous sweep around the outside of Turn 2, and it compromises him as Perez is on the inside on the run to Turn 3. Perez has a third of a car alongside and then suddenly… there’s contact, and both men are in the inside wall pondering what the fuck has just happened. And George Russell’s lottery numbers suddenly trend nationwide as for the second time this season, he’s gained two spots by doing nothing late on in a race. Funny that.

Now, I know it’s fun to play the blame game, so here’s my attempt. For me… it’s tricky. I agree with Sky’s Karun Chandhok, both men were looking for Charles’ slipstream on that Turn 3 run. Perez is way better off the exit and has enough of a car alongside to demand space on that straight. Both men’s onboards suggest there was no sudden movement that caused the contact, but Sainz’s natural line is pinching Perez’s room. Could Perez have taken more of the left of the track? Definitely. Could Sainz not have pinched him? Definitely. For me, a racing incident with neither party predominantly to blame is probably the right call. Sainz 52/48 if someone put a gun to my head because he knew Perez was coming off his own compromised Turn 2. But as we all know in the UK, nothing important is ever decided on a 52/48 swing.

In any case, It’s a damn shame. As a result, Red Bull lose the constructor’s Championship lead for the first time in nearly 900 days, probably a round ahead of schedule given McLaren’s superior performance since Miami. Ferrari, who all of a sudden were right in the mix, lost another handful of points and potentially two cars on the podium. And Sergio Perez, who out-qualified Max Verstappen for the first time all season, was challenging for the win on his best track, it all means nought, just when some of the pressure about his seat was starting to dissipate. Brutal.

So Oscar Piastri takes his second win, one under an immense amount of pressure, and one he earned, as opposed to that awkward swapsies in Hungary that has become the centrepiece of his team’s weird campaign for both titles. Speaking of which…

Papaya Rules 2: Orange Boogaloo

McLaren has, for lack of a politer term – Fucked it. After all the pressure from Hungary, Zandvoort and Monza, Andrea Stella at the time finally admitted they were going to use team orders to favour Lando Norris for the Drivers title…

…Except they didn’t really. It was all contrasting statements. Oscar said he’d be prepared to do it if asked, even if it meant giving up a victory. Lando denied it saying that if Piastri deserves to win and he’s in front, he should get to keep it. Even Stella said they were going to favour Norris for a couple of rounds and reassess. Once again, it was a wishy-washy stance from a team that has seemed to lack direction, despite being the best performers in F1 since Miami. 

And then this weekend happened, and Lando Norris had to start from P15 after being caught out by a yellow flag in his final run to the flag in Q1, dodging Esteban Ocon running on three working tyres. Just like that, Norris has to put on a salvage job. The good news, he beat Max Verstappen, who was struggling with setup again and finished 4th. The bad news is you’ve only taken three points off Max’s lead (Fastest lap bonus included), and lost another round where you could have really punished him. At a certain point, losing a race is more damaging than a marginal gain because the net points needed to beat Max go up race-by-race. 59 points, with seven races left.  

And to make matters even more complicated, Piastri, the man who was supposed to play second fiddle, just had his best weekend of the year to bring the difference between the Papaya drivers to just 32. If it was already hard to justify team orders (And a lot of you on Twitter made this point to me in the interim), it’s even harder to do it now, making the situation even more awkward. And in the last 11 races, Oscar Piastri has been the highest point scorer in F1:

Piastri – 181, Verstappen – 177, Norris – 171, Leclerc – 137 ¹

So now what? Can you still be all in on Norris with the scoreboard looking worse now than it did a week ago? Do you backtrack and let them race, or do you go all-in on Norris? 

McLaren’s indecision could ultimately backfire if they’re still serious about a double-title campaign.

The Lightning Round

The chaos led to some fun backstage results though – Williams had its best weekend of the year with 10 points scored. Alex Albon was superb in tyre whispering his way out of an embarrassing Q3 airbox disaster, and new boy Franco Colapinto with 4 points in eighth place and fighting with far more experienced drivers. In two races, he’s shown more than Logan Sargeant ever has. Begs the question though – If you had this in your back pocket the whole time, why did you push for Sainz so hard?

Another really solid drive from Ollie Bearman. He was kicking himself after just missing out on Q3, but 10th place gets him another point in the standings and history made as the first driver ever to score points back-to-back on debut, with two different teams. A really solid second showing from the Bear, man.

Alpine sink to ninth in the standings after this weekend too. Someone put them in rice. And I suspect morale might not improve any time soon with a decision on their engine department now just weeks away.

If you’re Red Bull, you can take a little bit of solace in that the upgrade seemed positive and Max wasn’t complaining about the car as much until Q3. Setup may have been the difference this time around. Singapore is going to tell us a LOT about the state of play before the final month-long break. 

And a reminder before we go – Azerbaijan is in an active war. We probably shouldn’t be racing here and it still makes me wonder where the line is in terms of protecting the sport’s image.

Dre’s Race Rating: 8.5*/10 (Excellent) – The best F1 race of 2024? Maybe, only Canada likely in that conversation. But the asterisk is there for a reason. There is no replay value in this one. The rating holds on that first watch and the intensity of this race. We had three teams competing for the win on equal terms for 90% of this race, with a shocking late twist at the end. You don’t get better than that without major shenanigans, but if you know what’s coming, it takes a lot of the fun away given the on-track action was rather minimal and strategy was a non-factor. Take that for what it’s worth. See you in Singapore. 

Rest in peace, Luca Salvadori

1. (Cheers JB on our Discord for saving me five minutes on the maths) ↩︎