Baku: perfect defence allows Piastri to beat Leclerc!

Just as at Monza, the duel at the top in Baku is between Oscar Piastri and Charles Leclerc. But, whereas in the Italian Grand Prix it was the Ferrari driver who won the challenge thanks to a masterpiece of strategy and tyre management, here in Azerbaijan it is the McLaren's Australian who took the victory, defending himself strenuously in a melee that lasted the entire second half of the race.

As always, leaving you with the final classification here, let's start with our analysis...

A three-way duel, with Perez surprisingly close to Piastri and Leclerc

The story of this race saw a near-perfect start from poleman Leclerc, who managed to keep the lead ahead of Piastri and Perez, with the Mexican carrying out a really well-calibrated attack on Sainz in Turn 2. As soon as Charles got rid of the McLaren's presence near his DRS zone (which, remember, is a very powerful one in Baku, with a 2.2 km straight), Ferrari's slightly superior pace allowed him to open up a steadily widening gap...

Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images

By the time of the first - and only - pit stop to switch from Mediums to Hards, the Monegasque had an advantage of as much as 6.0s over Oscar, suggesting a second stint along the lines of the first: the only real threat, it seemed, would have been an undercut by the Australian. But even then there would have been little to worry about with such a gap, would there?

Race pace held by Piastri, Leclerc, Perez and Sainz - GP Azerbaijan

Race pace held by Piastri, Leclerc, Perez and Sainz - GP Azerbaijan

As it turns out, in retrospect it wasn't exactly like that.... By stopping in the pits just one lap before Leclerc, Oscar Piastri knocked down around 4.0 of the 6.0 second gap, with a tangible opportunity to get into the DRS zone. Said, done: in just two more laps, there was a re-grouping between the two, with Sergio Perez surprisingly close to both.

Indeed, it was a strange race for the two Red Bulls: it was the very first time this season that Checo was more competitive than Max Verstappen, keeping a race pace almost 0.4 s/lap quicker than his team-mate - in both the first and second stints. Although the incident in the final stages with Sainz (which we will come back to in the next paragraph) makes him leave Baku with zero points, this weekend is the first for Perez in which he has shown he can be competitive, about a year and a half since his last victory, which - ironically - came in Azerbaijan...

Andrew Ferraro / Motorsport Images

So back to the race between the front three, on lap 20 comes Piastri's attack - and overtaking - on Leclerc, with a very bold braking into Turn 1... No front lock, and most importantly no opportunity for Charles to try a switchback before Turn 2. Even if the course of the race didn't suggest it, in terms of changes of position at the front, the Grand Prix was decided there.

Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

For the whole of the second stint, in fact, the Ferrari driver was a shadow in the McLaren's mirrors, without getting close enough to actually attempt an overtaking move into Turn 1 (the clearest overtaking hotspot according to this track layout). In this impossibility of making a counter-overtake, technically the low aerodynamic drag of the McLaren MCL38 played a big role in Piastri's favour. Today it was also very fast when Leclerc approached the DRS zone before the long straight with only 0.6s gap to the rear end of the papaya car.

Analysis of the stints run by the top team drivers - Azerbaijan GP

Analysis of the stints run by the top team drivers - Azerbaijan GP

In this regard, there is a lot of photographic evidence circulating on the web of the excessive flexibility of McLaren's wings, an element that would effectively reduce drag to such an extent that the MCL38 would be quicker on the straights. Not only that, but we should also take into account the possibility for the Woking team's engineers to use set-ups that take advantage of this "trick", avoiding using too slim wings when this or that track layout would actually require it...

The problem for the rivals is that the technical tests imposed by the FIA are static, which is why it's currently impossible to replicate the loads that actually act on the wings during a lap. Moreover, even if it were possible to reproduce such a condition, it would still not be a faithful reproduction as we would be comparing a static phenomenon with a dynamic one (thus losing all information about the aeroelastic behaviour of the wing components...).

Sainz's comeback ended in a crash with Perez two laps from the end...

Behind the top three, Carlos Sainz was the author of a race that, in the opinion of the writer, was formidable, but marred by a big mistake - two laps from the end - that irreparably compromised the outcome.

Race pace held by top team drivers - GP Azerbaijan

Race pace held by top team drivers - GP Azerbaijan

If we consider the graph shown above (extending its information to the other drivers of the top teams), we can see how having introduced the set of Hard tyres very gently allowed the Spaniard to make a proper comeback in the second stint, starting from a gap of 9.5 seconds to the top three.

As the laps passed, the Ferrari driver's recovery became more and more relentless, until - with three laps to go - he was reunited with the leading trio. In those same stages, the race dynamics saw Leclerc progressively losing traction due to a performance drop of his rear tyres, certainly stressed after closely following Piastri's McLaren. This triggered a duel between Leclerc and Perez, with the Mexican's overtake attempt for second place going awry in Turn 1...

Sainz, enthralled by the poor momentum with which the two in front of him faced the first 90° turn, even tried - after having had an easy time with Perez - an outside attack on his team-mate, ending up being himself the one with the worst line in Turn 2. In the next traction zone, the eagerness of the driver from Madrid even led him to make a straight line change of trajectory to try and benefit from Leclerc's slipstream in front: when Perez did the same, there was a crash between the two, who leave Baku with two "holes" in the Drivers' World Championship standings.

Russell benefited, who - after a frankly anonymous race (as well as that of his team-mate Hamilton) - took an unexpected podium, just as happened in Austria, where a contact between Norris and Verstappen had even given him the race win!

Norris makes up for a disastrous Saturday: the World Championship fight with Verstappen is still open!

Talking of Norris and Verstappen, we're certainly looking at two drivers who will not remember this weekend as one of the best of their respective careers: while Verstappen was almost beaten by Perez (which is incredible when you think about it), Norris avoided what - after a qualifying with a Q1 knockout - could have been a loss of points in the race to his rival in the fight for the World Championship.

Andrew Ferraro / Motorsport Images

The strategy that the McLaren pitwall (correctly) chose for Lando after the start in P15 was to start on Hards with a long stint in mind, and then switch to the Mediums very late in the race: this was the case, and as you can also see from the histogram for the fastest laps, the race pace of the number 4 car was truly unparalleled over the last 10 laps covered...

Personal fastest laptimes set by top team drivers - Azerbaijan GP

Personal fastest laptimes set by top team drivers - Azerbaijan GP

Despite this, for Lando it was yet another weekend in which a hypothetical victory turned into a lost opportunity: and it matters little that compared to Verstappen there were 3 points recovered (instead of lost) in the standings, because in the internal battle at McLaren the Azerbaijan weekend gives great momentum to Oscar Piastri, fomenting his ambitions of widening the World Championship match also to himself.

On the eve of the Singapore Grand Prix, the points situation is the one shown, with a gap of just 32 points separating Piastri (in P4) from Norris (in P2, in turn at -59 from Verstappen). With 7 races still to go, in my opinion nothing is precluded for the two drivers from the Woking team; different situation for Leclerc, who despite being in P3 in the standings, doesn't have at disposal a winning car as much as McLaren has shown it can be throughout the whole summer...

Points for the rookies Colapinto and Bearman: what a Sunday for them!

We cannot conclude our race analysis without first mentioning the formidable performance of the two rookies Colapinto and Bearman, who finished the Azerbaijan Grand Prix in the points zone, in P8 and P10 respectively.

Dom Romney / Motorsport Images

It was a race with very important implications for both: for Franco Colapinto, called to replace Sargeant for the rest of the season, the 4 points obtained mean (together with the 6 taken home by Albon) the overtaking in the Constructors' Championship of Williams (P8) over Alpine (P9). The Argentine driver will unfortunately have his path blocked in 2025 due to the - already confirmed - recruitment of Carlos Sainz in the Grove team, but he's nonetheless proving that compared to Logan Sargeant his driving level is much more in line with that of Alex Albon: and who knows, maybe this will give him a chance to drive again in the future... 

Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

Talking finally about Ollie Bearman, the substitution of Magnussen (who will be back on track regularly in Singapore after serving his 1-race ban) allows him to set a curious record, being the only rookie in Formula 1 history to have scored points with two different teams in his debut year. As was also the case in Jeddah - where he replaced Sainz in Ferrari due to an appendectomy - in Baku Oliver raced without making mistakes, skilfully alternating moments in which he didn't push to defend his position with others, such as with Hamilton, in which he made the 7-time World Champion sweat to overtake him. I'm sure that next year, even if only at Haas, Bearman will entertain us!

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