Azerbaijan Grand Prix Tag

By FIA Sergio Pérez took his first victory as a Red Bull Racing driver after team-mate Max Verstappen crashed out from the lead due to a puncture with just six laps left and Lewis Hamilton finished outside the points after locking up under braking on the re-start following the red flag for Verstappen’s crash. At the race start pole sitter Charles Leclerc got away well and took the lead for Ferrari ahead of front-row starter Hamilton. Verstappen made a solid start from third on the grid to take up positionRead More

By FIA Charles Leclerc grabbed a surprise second consecutive pole position, taking top spot in qualifying for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix thanks to a late red flag following an incident involving Ferrari team-mate Carlose Sainz and AlphaTauri’s Yuki Tsunoda. Lewis Hamilton recovered from a slow start to the weekend to take second place, while pole position favourite and championship leader Max Verstappen qualified third. With stoppages and incident always likely at the Baku City Circuit, a large queue formed in pit lane ahead of the start of Q1 as driverRead More

By FIA AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly went quickest in the final practice session for the FIA Formula 1 Azerbaijan Grand Prix, as pole position favourite Max Verstappen hit the barriers early in the session. The Red Bull driver’s team-mate Sergio Pérez finished second ahead of Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton. In an messy session running was hampered by low grip and running was frequently disrupted by yellow flags as drivers made mistakes and were forced to use escape roads. Pérez set the early pace, however, with a lap of 1m44.165 set on hardRead More

By FIA Sergio Pérez narrowly beat team-mate Max Verstappen by a tenth of a second to hand Red Bull Racing a 1-2 in the second practice session for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix as Mercedes struggled on the Baku City Circuit. In the first part of the session, run on medium tyres, Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz led the way with a lap of 1:43.162s. Any assault on that benchmark would have to wait, however, as soon after the Spaniard set his time the session was halted. Nicholas Latifi was forced to useRead More

By FIA Formula 1 Driver’s championship leader Max Verstappen set the fastest lap of the first practice session for this weekend’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix beating Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz at the Baku Street Circuit. The session on the streets beside the shores of the Caspian Sea was held in windy conditions and on a temporary track severely lacking in grip early on. There was a spin for AlphaTauri’s Yuki Tsunoda with the Japanese driver running out of road at Turn 4 before getting stuck in the run-off areaRead More

By Luis Torres, Staff Writer Arguably the three most intriguing Formula 1 grand prix circuits on the calendar becomes the latest blow to the 70th season due to the pandemic. The FIA announced Friday morning that those intriguing tracks were the Azerbaijan, Singapore and Japanese Grand Prix, with the latter meant they won’t be heading to the “Land of the Rising Sun” for the first time since 1986. “These decisions have been taken due to the different challenges our promoters face in those countries. In Singapore and Azerbaijan the long leadRead More

By Luis Torres, Staff Writer Formula One’s wild card race known as the Azerbaijan Grand Prix in Baku becomes the latest grand prix weekend postponed due to the COVID-19 crisis. Both the FIA and the Government of the Azerbaijan Republic confirmed Monday the grand prix weekend once slated to commence June 5-7 will not take place. They’ve set their eyes on rescheduling the 3.730-mile street circuit at a later date. In their statement, their decision was entirely based on expert guidance that was provided by relevant authorities. “BCC shares its fansRead More

By Luis Torres, Staff Writer Four rounds completed and it’s safe to say that Scuderia Ferrari are nowhere near title contenders. Not because they’ve just had rotten luck, but they’ve been out beat when it matters most, the grand prix races. It shows as they only have 99 points in the Constructor’s Championship to Mercedes-AMG F1’s 173 and have swept the first two steps of the podium in every grand prix thus far. Sure, the duo of Sebastian Vettel and Charles Leclerc have been fierce in the free practice sessions, butRead More

By FIA There was payback in Baku for Valtteri Bottas as the Finn won the Azerbaijan Grand Prix one year on from being denied almost certain victory in the city due to a late-race puncture. There was no repeat of that kind of drama in today’s fourth F1 race at the notoriously tricky street circuit and after resisting pressure off the starting line from team-mate Lewis Hamilton, Bottas delivered a faultless performance in a largely incident-free race to take the fifth F1 win of his career. Second place for Hamilton ahead of Ferrari’sRead More

By FIA Valtteri Bottas took his second pole position of the 2019 FIA Formula One World Championship at the end of a marathon, incident-packed qualifying session that saw two red flag periods for separate crashes involving Robert Kubica and pole position contender Charles Leclerc. Bottas made the best of a tight final run in Q3, maximising a good two to edge team-mate Lewis Hamilton by just 0.059s, with Sebastian Vettel third ahead of Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen. In Q1, Vettel led the early exchanges, setting a time of 1:42.348.Read More