Around the streets of Baku, in a remarkably uneventful race a day after one of the craziest qualifying sessions of all time, it was a Max Verstappen masterclass in a Red Bull which has been much improved of late.
He ran and hid from his pole position start, increasing his lead every lap despite just looking after his tyres for the first 20 laps and, having started on the seemingly indestructible hard tyre, was able to run until after everyone else had stopped. Just 11 laps from the end, he rejoined from his only stop without losing the lead. No undercut/overcut threats, no big leads lost to safety cars, just a perfect, totally dominant day at the office, with a fastest lap thrown in.
As Monza also showed, the Red Bull RB21 is very competitive at low-downforce tracks. It retains great aero-efficiency at low wing levels, with good downforce even at higher ride heights. It also received a useful floor upgrade at Monza, reckoned to be worth around 0.1sec but, more significantly, the trackside team has been operating with a slightly different philosophy since Laurent Mekies took over as team boss. One where they are less adamantly guided in set-up by simulation and more by Verstappen’s preferences.
A change in set-up approach is helping Verstappen get the most out of his car
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One of the preferences he pushed for in Monza, and which was retained in Baku, was a relatively big front wing in relation to the skinny rear wing. It gave him the driveability he craved to be able to feel the car more on corner entry. That’s always a valuable trait, but it was especially so around Baku in qualifying when the wild wind gusts and damp surface were throwing cars off track and into the walls. Such a set-up would likely be more problematic in high-speed corners, but they don’t feature around here.
Verstappen just smoothly felt his way around the hazards in a way the McLaren drivers were completely unable to do in their car, which tends to bite in low-downforce trim and which doesn’t carry the big aero efficiency advantage it enjoys at higher downforce tracks. Oscar Piastri crashed out of Q3 without a time on the board – as did Ferrari‘s Charles Leclerc – and Lando Norris glanced the wall hard, restricting him to a seventh-place grid slot. Lewis Hamilton hadn’t even made it out of Q2, albeit through no fault of his own.
Norris failed to make a big dent on Piastri’s lead
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With McLaren and Ferrari under-delivering, there was a big space right behind Verstappen – filled by Carlos Sainz and Liam Lawson, both of whom drove beautiful laps in cars with good driveability, putting them ahead of both Mercedes.
We revisit these qualifying stories because they were so fundamental to the shape of the race. DRS trains and low tyre deg ensured that very little happened. Once Piastri had crashed out on the opening lap, that is.
World champion Verstappen dominated the Baku race to take his second consecutive victory as Piastri retired
By
Pablo Elizalde
Sainz and Lawson held station as Verstappen drove away. On their medium tyres they were overcut by George Russell‘s Mercedes, which had started on the hards and so could run long enough to use his car’s greater pace. Kimi Antonelli was used to bring Lawson in and subsequently passed him but he could never get closer than 1.2sec to Sainz, who thus gave Williams a very welcome podium.
Lawson drove almost all of his second stint heading a DRS train comprising Yuki Tsunoda, Norris and the Ferraris of Hamilton and Leclerc. That remained the order from fifth to ninth at the flag, with Isack Hadjar taking the final point. Norris might have broken through that group had he not suffered another pitstop delay (as at Monza).
Despite the golden opportunity provided by Piastri’s crash, Norris is a still significant 25 points down at the head of the table, with consecutive winner Verstappen 69 points behind. Now come the high-downforce tracks where Red Bull’s recent gains will face a sterner test.
