A rare Ferrari pole in a season dominated by Redbull flashed promise of a more competitive race than previous outings, with Verstappen and Perez already stretching their legs at the front of the driver’s championship just four races into the season. Redbull said that damage sustained to Verstappen’s car in the early going of the Saturday sprint race cost him 0.75 seconds a lap, so would the Dutchman convert a fully functioning car into another race win?
And away we go…
A fairly uneventful first lap saw everyone emerge from turn one unphased, with both Stroll and Russell making a couple of early places at the expense of Yuki Tsunoda and the two McLarens. Russell made a lovely sweeping move around the outside of turn one, clearly heeding the warning of Verstappen about his antics up the inside on Saturday. A tangle in the midfield saw Bottas squeezed into a wall, Albon lose a chunk of his wing to Piastri, and an early yellow flag for some debris.
Leclerc held onto his first place, but Verstappen’s early pace was clear to see, as he started sniffing at the gearbox of the Ferrari on the very first run down Baku’s 2.22km straight even without the assistance of Redbull’s immensely powerful DRS.
As lap three became four, Verstappen sailed past Leclerc with his rear wing open, clocking an eyewatering speed of 340-ish kph, compared to Ferarri’s unassisted 320.
Leclerc didn’t even get the chance to test Verstappen with his DRS, as Verstappen put over a second between them inside one lap, leaving the Monogasque looking nervously in his mirrors as he fell into the clutches of Perez.
The race settles down
Carlos Sainz lacked early pace, falling away from Perez as Hamilton pushed him around the track, holding onto the back of Sainz’s Ferrari and keeping the Aston Martins at bay.
Perez made his move on lap six, cruising past Leclerc as if he was driving an F2 car.
Early strategies unfolding saw Gasly and Bottas dive into the pits on lap 6 and 7 respectively to get off the medium tires, with both harbouring two sets of new hards to take them to the end. Albon reacted in the Williams a lap later, successfully keeping Bottas’ Alfa behind him.
Box box
Lewis Hamilton was the first heavy-hitter to stop on lap 10, a lightning 2.6-second stop still saw him rejoin behind Kevin Magnussen in 13, an unfortunate oversight that saw him stuck behind a DRS train. Things really started to kick off at on lap 11, Magnussen went straight on at turn one before Nyck De Vries brought out the safety car, clipping the inside wall of a chicane and breaking his front suspension. Verstappen, who had pitted the same lap, lost out big time to Perez and the Ferraris, who all came in to take advantage of pitting under the safety car. Perez and Leclerc both came out ahead of Verstappen, a huge moment in the race that saw Verstappen lose his lead. Other big losers included the aforementioned raft of midfield cars who had pitted early, and Lewis Hamilton who found himself in tenth. It was a rare, uncharacteristic misstep from the Redbull pit wall that saw Verstappen called into the pits while De Vries was stopped on track, but the Safety Car had not yet been called out.
Green flag
A clean restart saw Verstappen regain one place from Leclerc, and Fernando Alonso make a typically swashbuckling dive up the inside of Carlos Sainz at turn six. Hamilton made up three places at the expense of Zhou, Magnussen, and teammate George Russell.
By lap 18, Perez and Verstappen had stretched out a 5.5-second lead over Leclerc and the rest of the field. Meanwhile, friendly neighbourhood teammate Fernando Alonso very kindly told his engineer to pass on his brake balance settings to Lance Stroll to help his race. What a guy. Under the tutelage of Qui-Gon Alonso and his shiny new brake balance, Stroll promptly bungled turn 16 and handed sixth place to Lewis Hamilton.
The boring bit in the middle
An impressive stint over the next 10 laps saw Perez build his gap to Verstappen to over two seconds, as the Ferrari of Charles Leclerc drifted further into the distance. As Verstappen complained of irregularities with his engine braking, Perez outdrove him in every sector that didn’t give Verstappen a tow. The early hard starters, Ocon and Hulkenberg, saw their 30+ lap-old tires start to fall away, as Lando Norris led a slow charge towards the Haas. I’m really reaching here, this part of the race was very boring. A terrible day for Alfa Romeo went from bad to worse as Zhou Guanyu was forced to retire on lap 38.
Save a couple of Alonso moves, every overtake of the race came under DRS, but cars struggled to catch up on the main straight, perhaps an unintended consequence of shortening the DRS zone by 100m?
A final flourish?
Lando Norris finally made his pass on Nico Hulkenberg, taking advantage as the Hulk ran deep at turn 5 and locked up to make a pass up into the points on lap 46. Yuki Tsunoda passed the Haas the following lap, as the latter hung on for a safety car or red flag that sadly never came. Oscar Piastri, who spent the weekend battling an illness that had seen him lose 3kg since his arrival in Baku, also got past Hulkenberg on lap 49.
Mercedes pulled Russell into the pits on lap 50 for a set of softs and a stab at fastest lap.
Chaos ensued on the final lap as Estoban Ocon came into the pits for his mandatory stop, only to find photographers, engineers, and more riff-raff stood in the pit lane entrance. Organizers can consider themselves very lucky that no one was seriously injured.
Checo Perez crossed the line to take a convincing if uneventful win. Despite Redbull’s continued dominance, hope remains for an exciting championship with Perez challenging Verstappen. Could we see a spicy teammate battle on our hands? A Perez-Verstappen 1 2 would see the two level on points when the chequered flag falls on the Miami Grand Prix.
Classification
PER
VER
LEC
ALO
SAI
HAM
STR
RUS (Fastest lap)
NOR
TSU
PIA
ALB
MAG
GAS
OCO
SAR
HUL
BOT
ZHO (DNF)
DEV (DNF)