Let the 2023 Azerbaijan Grand Prix be a lesson to the Formula 1 word: it’s always better to under-promise and overdeliver than the reverse.
Yes, Azerbaijan has developed a reputation for deliver some truly wacky racing over its six events to date, but it’s never been a guarantee. Not every race there has been a thriller; it’s just that the highlights have shone so brightly that the we’ve tended to forget the boring bits.
In that respect the hype around Baku’s first sprint — supposedly at a venue guaranteed to deliver action regardless of the rules — was never going to live up to expectations.
You might even say it’s an ironic sort of justice that Azerbaijan served up its most processional race since 2016 on the weekend so much stock was put in it delivering a spectacle.
Not that the race was completely meaningless.
Sergio Pérez’s victory could prove crucial to the championship battle, not only getting him back on close to equal terms but restoring in him some confidence.
Ferrari also made some steps forward, albeit not nearly large enough to make an impact on Red Bull Racing’s weekend.
Both are important contributions to the narrative of the season. It’s just that where we first gleaned them is fast forgotten in a haze of hopefully many more interesting races to come.
PÉREZ TAKES CONFIDENCE-BOOSTING VICTORY
Be honest: after Pérez crashed out of qualifying in a puff of lockup tyre smoke Australia and recovered to only fifth behind winner Verstappen, how severely did you doubt his title credentials in what has fast become a one-team championship?
The feeling was understandable. Pérez has been blitzed by Verstappen in their two seasons as teammates, and while he was a highly rated midfield specialist in a past life, he’s yet to campaign for a title.
Well, if you felt that, it turns out you weren’t alone. Pérez though the same.
“I think I‘m getting back my confidence,” Pérez said on Friday in Baku. “It really knocked my confidence quite a bit, if I’m honest, what happened in Melbourne.
“Especially [because] we had a three-week break and then you go straight into qualifying pretty much. And it‘s all about braking here, having that confidence on the braking. I think I’m getting there.”
It turns out third in Friday qualifying was only a building block for what was to come.
True to his burgeoning reputation as a street circuit master, Pérez has been peerless when the points were paid. He was excellent in the sprint and even better in the grand prix.
Some will say he won only because the safety car flipped the order of the top three and put him in the lead, but that greatly undersells it.
He was quicker than Verstappen in the first stint as the Dutchman struggled to keep his medium tyres alive and was within DRS range when his teammate entered the pits.
He then easily covered him after the restart, gradually but constantly extending the gap in a duel reminiscent of their battle in Saudi Arabia earlier this year.
It’s rare that we get to say it, but Pérez was a genuine Verstappen match, perhaps even his superior, this weekend.
“Checo is definitely living up to his nickname of king of the streets,” Red Bull Racing principal Christian Horner said. said. “He got a little bit lucky with the timing of the safety car, but having got the lead, he built close to a four-second lead at one point and controlled the race.
“He then had to get on and deliver. You’ve got Max Verstappen behind you, he’s not taking it easy.
“He used his opportunity and converted it into a great win.
“They were pushing each other hard … but we let them push all the way through. That was always the plan going into the race.
“And all credit to Checo, drove a great race today.”
His deficit to Verstappen is now just six points, and optimism for a genuine title battle has been restored for at least another week.
VERSTAPPEN CALL WAS RIGHT — AT THE TIME
Christian Horner also addressed criticism that his pit wall could have done more to prevent Verstappen from losing the lead via his poorly timed pit stop, which came just seconds before the safety car was deployed to collect Nyck de Vries’s broken AlphaTauri.
Verstappen had been at turn 14 when De Vries crashed, and by the time he made it to pit entry the crash site was still being controlled by yellow flags.
Horner said that there had been enough time to make an assessment and that the evidence suggests a safety car wasn’t imminent.
“The problem was we didn’t have the visibility of De Vries; it was a quick shot of him and just a black set of lines,” he said. “It looked like he’d outbraked himself.
“All four wheels were on the car, he hadn’t hit the barrier and the engine was running.
“It looked like he’d select reverse and carry on. We never expected that to go to a safety car.
“It was only subsequently I think on the replays that you were able to see a track rod was broken.
“Obviously with 20/20 vision we’d have just done one more lap and gone from there.”
At worst you could argue that race control acted too slowly in deploying the safety car, but even this would be a stretch for even diehard Verstappen fans. It was still early in the race and there were no cars immediately approaching the scene of the crash — it meant race control had some time to analyse the situation to ensure the right call was made.
And anyway, it was only two races ago that race control was criticised for deploying the safety car too quickly when Lance Stroll stopped on track in Saudi Arabia.
The safety car — like the red flag — is just one of those random elements of grand prix racing. Yes, they can spice up the show and influence the order, but their points is safety, not spectacle. And what goes around tends to comes around eventually.
Lando pulls off ‘overtake of the Day!’ | 00:53
TOP-SPEED DELTA MYSTIFIES FERRARI
While Pérez’s victory over Verstappen was impressive for the Mexican, the pair’s defeat of Charles Leclerc was less personally impressive given the epic speed advantage the Red Bull Racing car has over the Ferrari.
This was another one of those races in which the RB19’s almost embarrassing abundance of pace was laid bare.
In the final 38 laps after the safety car, Pérez and Verstappen pulled away from Leclerc at an average of around 0.5 seconds per lap, though in truth there was more in the tank — the delta was closer to a second early in the stint when the battle for the lead was fiercer.
But the most visceral example of the RB19’s Sunday advantage came down the long front straight, especially with DRS activated.
When Verstappen motored past Leclerc and into the lead at the start of lap 4, he was travelling approximately 34 kilometres per hour faster than the Monegasque before hitting the brakes, a mind-boggling number for two cars ostensibly in the same category.
“They are in another league when it comes to race,” Leclerc said, underlining the point. “The really good [qualifying] lap managed to put us at the front, but over 51 laps it was just not possible; they have so much more pace than we do in race pace.
“I think they found something we didn’t yet. That’s where our focus is at the moment.
“Everybody is working flat out to try and understand what we can do in the races, especially to just get more performance.”
The difference in top speed isn’t just a Ferrari thing, with Aston Martin and Mercedes similarly slow down the straights.
As for the prediction on Saturday that Ferrari had made a step — well, that’s on hold considering the massacre of the race and the fact that Fernando Alonso constantly shadowed the Monegasque in the second half of the race, albeit without the pace to make a move.
“Honestly, the feeling is a little bit better, but when I see the gap — and I’m pretty sure when you have this you’re not pushing at 100 per cent — we don’t really know how much we’ve cut the gap,” Leclerc said.
“But the feeling is a little bit better. Again, the Aston Martin was really quick today, so we still have a lot of work to do.”
Optimism must also be tempered for the fact that Carlos Sainz was nowhere this weekend. While the Spaniard has been open about mistakes made locking in set-up, we need more races in the sample size to know whether the car’s sweet spot is difficult to find or whether this was simply a one-off error.
“Today there was just no confidence to push in the car, to get close the walls,” Sainz said after finishing more than 24 seconds adrift of Leclerc. “We will finally have a bit of time to settle down and analyse what could have been, and I’m sure in Miami we will be back on form.”
The podium was positive for Ferrari after a tough start to the year, but it’s done nothing to paper over the problems that still plague the car.
PIT LANE SAFETY BACK IN THE SPOTLIGHT
For the second time in as many weekends several people have wound up somewhere they’re not supposed to be.
In Australia spectators invaded the track on the final lap — a clear breach of the conditions of entry on a ticket.
But in Azerbaijan it was a large group of mostly photographers who had found themselves in the fast lane of pit lane, and they’d been sent there by the FIA, the governing body responsible for motorsport safety.
And they were sent there shortly before Esteban Ocon dived into the pits for his final pit stop.
It was a bizarre and frightening sight.
The approach to pit lane is taken at around 320 kilometre per hour, and the top speed through the chicane is taken at approximately 160 kilometres per hour before a driver hits the brakes to get to 80 kilometres per hour to transit through the pit lane.
Even a small mistake from Ocon on the brakes on 50-lap-old tyres could have resulted in a catastrophe.
“Yeah, not something that we want to see,” he said. “I had to lift off, I had to back off. I would not have liked to be the one in the middle there, at the speed we are arriving there, especially so close to the line.
“If I missed the braking point, it’s a big disaster.”
The photographers and others were gathering around the parc fermé barriers that protect the area the top three park after the race. It’s not unusual for preparations for the post-race formalities to start shortly before the end of the race, but in this case there’d evidently been a massive misreading of the situation.
Not only was it obvious Ocon was going to pit — he hadn’t made his mandatory stop yet — but it appears that perhaps there was a misunderstanding about what lap the Frenchman was on given he was close to being lapped by Pérez.
Whatever the case, the stewards summoned the FIA representatives responsible for parc fermé security after the race, and though no punishment was dealt, the governing body will be required to reformulate its procedures.
It wasn’t the only improper invasion of people on the day, with Sky Sports cameras later picking up Sergio Pérez being mobbed by fans in the paddock area after a post-race interview adding yet another strange twist to the final moments of the afternoon.
Azerbaijan has re-signed to host grands prix for another three seasons, but surely there’ll have to be changes by next year.
