Azerbaijan GP - Perez makes it double, beating Verstappen and the Ferrari of Leclerc

The Azerbaijan Grand Prix ends with another Red Bull one-two, the third in four races this year. This time Perez wins ahead of Verstappen, but Leclerc's revived Ferrari ends up on the third step of the podium - for the first time in 2023. Let's go relive all the details of the race.

#F1 - Provisional Classification of the 2023 Azerbaijan Grand Prix 🇦🇿#AzerbaijanGP pic.twitter.com/ujwPfMJJei

— FIA (@fia) April 30, 2023

Red Bull's supremacy nullifies Leclerc's pole position

The previous races at the beginning of the season had left us with the clear feeling that Leclerc's pole position, although deserved and indicative of a real performance on a single flying lap, would not have been turned into a race win... The difference on race pace was too big, as much as the RB19's tyre management versus the SF-23. In fact, after only 6 laps leading the race, both Red Bulls took a single bite of Charles' Ferrari!

Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

There's one figure out of many that gives an idea of Charles' quality as a driver: of the 19 pole positions achieved in his career, only 4 of them were converted into race wins. A conversion rate of 21.05%, significantly lower than other drivers with a similar number of pole position to him. The lack of victories came for various reasons: technical problems, strategy mistakes by the Ferrari pit wall, or simply - like yesterday - a lack of competitiveness to fight for the top step of the podium.

Strategies from the Azerbaijan GP (Pirelli Motorsport / Twitter)

After the first 3 positions settled (with Verstappen ahead of Perez and Leclerc), the only real twist of the race was caused by the Safety Car brought on the track after Nyck De Vries' accident. On lap 10, the Dutchman of the Alpha Tauri hit the inside wall in turn 5, breaking the front left suspension wishbones: although this impact was not at high speed, it was enough to put an end to his race.

The Safety Car ruins Verstappen's race

At this point, the strategic aspect heavily penalized Verstappen, who made his pit stop just before the Safety Car was brought on the track. In doing so, he lost about 21 seconds compared to Perez and Leclerc, while the latter were able to switch to the hard tyres in 11 seconds less than Max. The logical consequence of this was that Verstappen was "demoted" to third position, which became second after only 3 corners (!) from the restart of the Grand Prix.

“In the first stint I probably could have been a little more aggressive in the way I used the tyres. I think I was too cautious and that's why Checo was very close to me. And then, of course, we decided to pit: I saw that there was a car stopped and I thought it had stalled. I will have to review the reason for my stop together with the team, it was clear that there was a damaged wheel and the stop in conjunction with the Safety Car damaged my race… So, all in all, I can be satisfied with 2nd place. I mean, obviously you always want to win, but I think sometimes you need this kind of weekend to learn and understand the car better, what the car needs to go faster. So, maybe this was a good day looking forward. Checo has been pushing a lot this year, he's driving really fast. He feels more and more at ease behind the wheel: you have to recognize and appreciate when someone has done a great job and that's exactly what happened today. We will continue to fight for the rest of the season, but it's normal, we've always done it"
Max Verstappen

From that moment on, all of them (Perez, Verstappen, Leclerc, Alonso, Sainz, Hamilton, Stroll, Russell in order) "anesthetized" the race by doing slower laptimes than their cars allowed them: the goal, just like in the last Australian GP, was to make the Hard tyres last until the end of the race. Not an easy task, even more so if we consider that due to the particular format adopted this weekend, actually no one had simulated long runs on this tyre compound in free practice.

Race pace held by the 4 top teams' each highest classified driver

In the end they all succeeded, especially thanks to an aggressively careful tyre management… In any case, once they realized the possibility of going all the way to the end without the need to box again, the top four runners began to compete for the only which remained to fight for: the additional point for the fastest lap in the race.

The fight for the fastest lap exposes the potential of the top teams

Here I would like to express my appreciation for this rule: although it is a single World Championship point, this is an excellent incentive for all to keep pushing and not give up in the final laps. So, for once, we have to give credito to the regulators for this addition to the regulation - a rule now in its fifth year of application, but I think it is quite unanimously appreciated.

Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

In addition to this, a technical observation also arises from the fight for the fastest lap: how is it possible that the two Red Bulls, after having opened a gap of about 20 seconds on Leclerc, lapped on similar laptimes, and sometimes slower? From my point of view, the explanation is twofold:

• The mapping of the electrical part on the Anglo-Austrian team's Honda Power Units was not at its highest: as already seen in the first three GPs, to preserve the Power Units and guarantee an overall reliability during the Championship, Red Bull chooses - rightly in my opinion - to use less aggressive electric power charge/discharge modes;
• Aston Martin and above all Ferrari are two cars that express themselves at their best in the final parts of the race, when fuel consumption makes them lighter: it is no coincidence that - speaking of Ferrari - we can observe an average difference between performance in qualifying and in the race by about 7 tenths per lap;

As for the final results, these technical discussions, however interesting, did not matter at all because George Russell (8th), taking advantage of a huge gap on his chasers, was able to pit for new soft tyres 2 laps from the end and knock down the best laptime until then (held by Verstappen in 1'44”232, for the record) by about 0.9 seconds, with a brilliant 1'43”370​​​​​​. This allows the British driver to bring home the aforementioned additional point, together with the four points awarded for his eighth place.

Andrew Ferraro / Motorsport Images

All this did not affect Sergio Perez's victory in the slightest. The Mexican driver now has 2 race wins under his belt this year, thanks also to his victory in Saudi Arabia. "Checo" is a master on street circuits, and once again he gave concrete proof of this by repelling teammate Verstappen's attacks for over 30 laps. Just like in Jeddah, although Max ran into problems of different kinds, when the two RB19s got close together Checo remained composed and with an impressive race pace never allowed him to be a real threat (keeping him outside the DRS zone)…

"I think the first stint was better… Then the Safety Car came and put everyone in trouble. So it was another race with the hard tyres. I think the race was very close between Max and me, we pushed a lot and we both hit the wall a couple of times while pushing.The way Max pushed me throughout the race was really hard to sustain but we managed to keep it under control.
The season is still long, I really think I'm fighting for the title… without the problems we had in qualifying in Melbourne, Max and I would also be much closer in the standings. So, it's important to never have these problems again and reduce them at least, because I think it's very important to make sure that every time we can't win we manage to finish second and still make Sunday a good day"
Sergio Perez

Leclerc's race, as already said, was the mirroring of Ferrari's progress in Baku: optimizing every phase of the weekend, the Maranello team finally closed a race on the podium, limiting the comeback of an excellent Alonso on an uncongenial track to the characteristics of his Aston Martin. It had already happened on Saturday with Charles' second place in the Sprint, but the real race is a completely different story...

“It was a very good weekend in terms of maximizing results, but there is still a lot of work to do. On the flying lap you can still make a difference because you take more risks, but what we lost yesterday at the end of the race we lost today at the start of the GP, because we had to manage the tyres: we still lack performance in certain points of the race because we are not yet fast enough. I'm confident about the updates that will come, I know how good the team is and I'm sure we're working in the right direction, but I don't know if it will be enough to close the gap to Red Bull"
Charles Leclerc

Close race in the midfield behind Ocon and Hulkenberg

The race behind the top eight was rather weird, because after the Safety Car period Ocon and Hulkenberg actually spent a lot of time in ninth and tenth position… The oddity lies in the fact that even though they deservedly keeped these points paying positions, they also knew that they would have given them up at a certain point: having started from the pit lane on Hard tyres, as prescribed by the regulations they would have had to replace them at least once. This would have irretrievably sent them back to the tail of the field, so the strategy adopted - correctly - by Alpine and Haas was to keep them on track as long as possible, hoping for another Safety Car or a red flag.

Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

These eventualities did not occur, so 9th place went to Norris and 10th to Tsunoda; Ocon finished in 15th position, and Hulkenberg even in 17th. Although they couldn't do much more in their racing conditions, a broader discussion spontaneously arises: Liberty Media does everything to increase the show, often and willingly neglecting the sporting aspect of Formula 1... Well, how can the show benefit from using Hard tyres (of the C3 compound yesterday) that last an entire race without degrading? Proposing softer compounds - without going too much at the other end of the spectrum - would help increase the uncertainty around the race, without distorting its technical and sporting content.

The drivers and their teams would not consider the single pit stop as the only viable option (which has already happened 2 times out of 4 this year, between Australia and Azerbaijan), and would be encouraged to push harder to be more creative with strategies. On the other hand, the technical departments would allocate their resources towards the goal of "producing" single-seaters that are more gentle on tyres: what we are talking about is technical progress, something perfectly in line with the DNA of Formula 1.

Teams already projected in Miami, in a May full of races

No time to celebrate (or to dwell on missed opportunities, depending on the result), and the teams are already grappling with the enormous logistics that will have to move the circus from Baku to Miami, where the fifth round of the 2023 World Championship will take place this weekend. In the next month, the teams will have to face 4 races in 5 weekends, a real tour de force that clashes with the Sprint break just ended. But the contracts with the circuits have already been signed, and thinking of redistributing the races more evenly would have been practically impossible.
From a technical point of view, in Miami we will see several aerodynamic updates that the teams have been in the pipeline for some time: in particular, it will be interesting to see if at Ferrari the planned upgrades will result in a better tyre management, bringing them closer to the pace setter of this 2023. But we'll find out very soon!