ROUND 17: 🇦🇿 Azerbaijan
FORMULA 1 QATAR AIRWAYS AZERBAIJAN GRAND PRIX 2024
Circuit stats
- Circuit name: Baku City Circuit
- First Grand Prix: 2016
- Number of laps: 51
- Circuit Length: 6.003 km
- Race Distance: 306.049 km
- Lap record: 1:43.009 Charles Leclerc (2019)
- 2023 winner: Sergio Perez
Track Map
Piastri will be competing for the WDC next year
This year! My prediction is he wins p2
Piastri is defending excellently. Not the smallest error so far, no matter how close Leclerc comes with DRS
Champions drive
They planned on Piastri playing the team game for Norris and now Norris did it for Piastri by holding Perez back lol
Crazy that there are actual battles in the last few laps! Norris-Verstappen and Leclerc-Perez battles basically determine who will lead the WCC after this round
I have to say, Norris kind of spanked Max today.
Norris has been eating away at Max’s win but today he started 15 (I think) and Max 6. Norris ended up ahead of Max who only gained a spot after the Checco/Sainz crash.
Excellent racing so far.
Man what a crazy race
WTF happened there??
Looked like a puncture back left for Sainz?
This feels like the most likely explanation to me, it looked like SAI got almost sucked into the inside of PER’s car…
I just had another look at Sergio’s on board. He touched the back left of Carloz who was slowly drifting towards him. Could have been avoided by Sergio.
Ah thank you, that explains it.
My guess is Carlos was blinded by the light after the turn and couldn’t properly see he was inching to the left.
Perez could have avoided that and got his best result for a long time. Hell he could still have overtaken sainz there if he just moved left slightly
Edit : I guess perez was also slightly blinded by the sun and did not realise he was drifting towards sainz. Unfortunate
It’s kind of irresponsible to be racing at that time of day if drivers end up going down a straight blind like that. They should probably move the start to a bit earlier in the day.
Russell said he couldn’t see shit going past the accident and they were lucky they both were on the side of the road and hadn’t bounced back into the middle.
But I’m from the UK and it would inconvenience me if the race were any earlier
Fine, we’ll just endanger the drivers for your convenience.
How about, as a compromise, we race earlier in the day but shine a spotlight down the straight so the drivers are still blinded?
(And if you haven’t worked it out yet, I’m joking)
Yeah, I got that.
I’m actually wondering if a night race could be an option.
My guess is that both were trying to catch Leclerc’s slipstream and were focused on Leclerc and not each other. That said if I had to assign blame I think it’s more on Perez than Sainz.
Perez was driving a straight line, wasn’t he? Carlos was driving ever so lightly left
I thought he was drifting slightly right to go towards the racing line. Sainz was drifting more though. Still I think perez was much better placed to prevent that crash
But ahead of Perez, who could have adjusted but didn’t for some reason
We’ll see what they say but I guess the low sun could be an explanation
I would need to watch their cameras at that point to be sure, but from the replay on the fixed camera that’s the impression I got.
Omg omg omg omg omg omg
Traditionally, this is when either a Ferrari engine or a red bull tire lets go
Well a Ferrari and a Red Bull did end up in the wall
I don’t think you can blame that crash on engine or tires.
If Perez’s tires had given up one corner sooner, he wouldn’t have been there to hit Saintz. If Saintz’s engine was performing better, he would have been far enough ahead to not hit Perez
/s
And breathe
Norris looks to be going fast enough
I wonder how Stroll’s puncture happened.
Edit: Contact with Tsunoda.
