F1's most chaotic circuit? The wildest moments in Baku's history

Baku has only been on the Formula 1 calendar since 2016, but few other circuits on the calendara have produced chaos at this rate.

Barely a season has passed at the Azerbaijan track without a title battle unravelling, a driver losing his cool on the radio, or a car burying itself in the wall from nowhere.

The reason isn’t hard to find. Baku crams two opposing disciplines into one lap: a tight, walled-in old-town section that punishes the smallest error, and one of the longest straights on the calendar leading into a flat-out blast at Turn 1.

Cars and drivers built for one extreme are exposed by the other, and the result has been one of the most reliably dramatic weekends on the schedule.

Formula 1 returns to Baku this week for round 18 of the 2026 season. Here are some of the most dramatic moments that have defined the track so far.

1. Vettel drives into Hamilton behind the safety car (2017)

It’s 2017 and Sebastian Vettel and Lewis Hamilton are locked in one of the most interesting title battles in years. Vettel is convinced Hamilton has brake-tested him coming out of the final safety car period, so he pulls alongside and rams his front wheel straight into the side of the Mercedes. It’s a moment of madness that proves costly.

Vettel gets a 10-second stop-go penalty for his actions, but things keep getting weirder.

Hamilton, now with no real challenge to his lead, has a loose headrest and must have an unscheduled pitstop to fix it. The result? With Hamilton delayed and Vettel receiving a penalty, Daniel Ricciardo‘s Red Bull takes the unexpected win.

If that wasn’t strange enough, the race also saw a shock podium for then-rookie Lance Stroll. Just 18 years old and in contention for a top-two finish, he’d dragged his Williams to the front of the field. Valtteri Bottas hunted him down and passed him right on the finish line, denying him what would have been an extraordinary second place. Still, third place made him the youngest rookie ever to stand on an F1 podium. That record still stands.

2. Ricciardo takes out his own team-mate (2018)

Red Bull team-mates Ricciardo and Max Verstappen had been in a dogfight all afternoon, trading fourth and fifth positions.

With a tow down the huge main straight, Ricciardo lined up a move on his team-mate into Turn 1, but locked his brakes as Verstappen darted over slightly later than expected to defend the corner. It meant Ricciardo drove straight into the back of Verstappen’s car.

Both Red Bulls were out on the spot, and the stewards handed reprimands to both drivers rather than pin the blame on either. Years later, Ricciardo admitted it was probably the moment that began his exit from the team.

3. Leclerc’s “I am stupid” moment (2019)

Charles Leclerc is something of a street circuit specialist, but that doesn’t mean he’s not prone to mistakes. In 2019 he’d topped every Baku practice session and looked the clear favourite for pole position that weekend.

Then, in Q2, he lost the rear at the tightest section of the lap and buried the nose of his Ferrari in the barrier.

“I am stupid, I am stupid,” he explained over the radio as marshals worked to free the car, before climbing out and banging his hands on the car in frustration. Bottas nicked pole instead, with Leclerc starting all the way down in ninth.

4. Grosjean’s radio meltdown (2018)

It’s rare to crash under a safety car, but that’s exactly what Romain Grosjean managed to do in 2018.

The Frenchman speared his Haas into the wall during a safety car period with no other car within a hundred yards of him – losing the rear while trying to generate temperature in his tyres and brakes.

When Grosjean asked what had happened, his race engineer offered up an explanation that is now iconic: “Marcus Ericsson hit us.” Ericsson was nowhere near Grosjean at the time.

5. Ricciardo reverses into a parked car (2019)

Attacking Daniil Kvyat for position, Ricciardo sent his Renault up the inside into Turn 3, missed his braking point entirely, and ran wide onto the escape road.

In what the Australian described afterwards as a moment of pure panic, Ricciardo then reversed back, straight into the front of Kvyat’s stationary Toro Rosso without ever looking behind him.

Both cars were damaged badly enough to retire later in the race, and Ricciardo picked up a three-place grid penalty for the next round in Spain along with two penalty points.

6. Tyre failures pause the title race for a day (2021)

Lance Stroll‘s left-rear tyre let go without warning at roughly 200mph while he was running in the points, pitching the Canadian’s Aston Martin straight into the barriers. It was an alarming warning sign that nobody quite heeded in time.

Four laps later, Verstappen – controlling the race from third on the grid and cruising towards another win – suffered an almost identical left-rear failure.

After climbing out of the car, he kicked the tyre in anger, producing one of the defining images of the 2021 season and bringing out a red flag that reset the whole race.

7. Hamilton fumbles the restart (2021)

As the 2021 race was halted after Verstappen’s tyre blowout, Perez had inherited the lead for the two-lap restart with the Mercedes of Hamilton in second. Hamilton got the jump on the Mexican off the lights, but he failed to slow enough for Turn 1 and drove straight on, dropping to 15th and handing Verstappen another chance at the 2021 drivers’ championship.

It turned out Hamilton had accidentally left Mercedes’ “brake magic” on – a system designed to warm up the brakes before the beginning of races.

Perez picked up the pieces and took the win, followed by Vettel with the first podium place for the modern Aston Martin team. Pierre Gasly‘s AlphaTauri rounded out the top three.

8. Ferrari implodes from the front (2022)

Leclerc once again had looked imperious in qualifying, taking a comfortable pole after showing speed throughout Friday and Saturday. However, it wasn’t to be for his team.

Carlos Sainz retired almost immediately with a brake-by-wire failure in his Ferrari. Team-mate Leclerc’s engine let go while he was leading the race.

Verstappen, who’d looked slower for most of the weekend, cruised to the win.

9. Leclerc does it again, then Baku sets a record (2025)

Chasing another Baku pole position, Leclerc carried too much speed into Turn 15 in slightly greasy qualifying conditions. He locked up and drove straight into the barrier – making nearly the same mistake in the same corner, six years on from his meltdown at the same track. Another iconic moment that Leclerc will want to forget.

His crash was one of six separate wall impacts that dragged last year’s qualifying session out to nearly two hours, roughly an hour longer than scheduled – a new record for the most stoppages in a single qualifying session. Many of the incidents came down to strong gusting wind making the cars more unpredictable.

10. Piastri’s title charge collapses (2025)

Oscar Piastri‘s title charge took a huge hit in the 2025 Baku race. The championship leader (by a sizeable 31 point margin) crashed out of Q3 the day before, then jumped the start of the race. It triggered the McLaren‘s anti-stall system and dropped it to the back before the first corner.

It only got worse from there. as Piastri tried to recover positions on lap one, he locked his front-left tyre going into Turn 5 and slid into the barrier, ending his race there and then. His title lead continued to reduce, and Norris soon took charge of the championship table.