Five talking points from an anti-climactic Azerbaijan GP

Ferrari goes into meltdown

Leclerc claimed his sixth pole position of the season in Baku, showing once again that on pure speed he and his Ferrari appear to have Red Bull licked. But Sunday couldn’t have gone much worse for the Maranello team.

Carlos Sainz’s atrocious luck continued when he pulled off into an escape road on lap nine with what turned out to be a hydraulics failure. As for Leclerc, his race had got off to a bad start when fellow front row qualifier Sergio Perez beat him to Turn One. A Virtual Safety Car interlude for Sainz’s retirement led Ferrari to throw the dice and bring Leclerc in for hard-compound Pirellis, and what potentially would have been a very long stint on the white-walled rubber – if he had been able to get as far as the finish. Instead, after both Red Bulls pitted, leaving Leclerc back in the lead, suddenly his engine blew in a puff of white smoke.

Would he have been able to hold off Verstappen, who had pitted much later and was heading for a significant tyre-life advantage? Probably not. But to fail to score at all, two races after his Ferrari let him down on his way to what seemed certain victory in Spain, was just embarrassing. Kevin Magnussen’s Ferrari-powered Haas also let him down. The supposed revival that was so welcome at the start of the season has gone off the rails.

Leclerc struggled to express his disappointment, which is understandable. “I am more than frustrated,” he said. “The first stint we weren’t particularly strong at the beginning but then I was catching back ‘Checo’ [Sergio Perez]. I think pitting was the right choice. We were leading and then I was managing the tyres well. We just had to manage the tyres to the end and we were in the best position to do that. Another DNF. It hurts. It is more than significant. I don’t really have the words.”

Leclerc now lags 34 points behind Verstappen in the standings, with Perez between them.

Verstappen puts Perez back in his place

Hot on the heels of Perez outperforming Verstappen and winning the Monaco GP, here he was again, outqualifying the world champion. Is the Mexican really a genuine threat to the Dutchman this year – and if so, will Red Bull really let him fully off the leash?

As Perez got the better of Leclerc at the start and led the early stages, those questions sprung to mind once more. But then Verstappen appeared to answer the first one, with conviction. At the beginning of lap 15, Max closed in on Checo and passed easily into Turn 1, eventually heading his team-mate to a Red Bull 1-2 – by 20.8 seconds. Yes, from time to time it does appear in this new breed of F1 car Perez will be able to get the upper hand over Verstappen and give him a jolt. He is more than good enough to do just that. But beat him over a full season? Pull the other one. On most occasions that second question about Red Bull letting Perez off the leash won’t need to be answered at all.

Russell stars – and so does Hamilton

George Russell’s inherited third place, keeping up his top-five finishing record, showed once again how accomplished he is. The 24-year-old started two places ahead of 37-year-old Lewis Hamilton, but Russell was nearly 50 seconds off Verstappen at the flag, as Mercedes continues to race in a different (inferior) league to Red Bull. But as best of the rest, Russell had shone.

So too did Hamilton, who was forced to dig deep in tricky circumstances. Like Ferrari and Leclerc, Mercedes chose to stop both of its drivers under the VSC, leaving Hamilton stacked and briefly delayed as the second one into the pits. That allowed Sebastian Vettel to get ahead for Aston Martin. It seemed that, once again, things were going against the seven-time champion, but now in a lowly 11^th place behind others who hadn’t stopped, Lewis got his head down and showed his fighting spirit.

Sure, Vettel gave him a place back when the German outbraked himself after pulling a move on Esteban Ocon, but Hamilton then passed the Alpine and both AlphaTauris to fight his way to a hard-earned fourth place.

At the end he hobbled away from his car, complaining of severe back ache in the wake of the dreaded ongoing Mercedes ‘bounce’. It seems to affect him more than anyone and Toto Wolff even cast some doubt on Hamilton being fit for the Canadian Grand Prix later this week. Fifteen years on from the scene of his first grand prix win in 2007, it would be a pity if Hamilton can’t race on a circuit where he’s always shone. Then again, the high-speed and fairly bumpy Montréal circuit will be just what he doesn’t need right now.

Could Vettel have finished fourth?

The four-time world champion has a decent record in Baku and once again showed up his team-mate Lance Stroll by putting in a decent performance on Sunday. The mistake he made at Turn Three having passed Ocon was a bit painful, but he recovered well and quickly, and eventually finished sixth behind Pierre Gasly’s AlphaTauri. Given that he was running ahead of Hamilton at the time he dropped his clanger, does that mean Vettel threw away a couple of places and could have finished fourth? The thought takes a bit of shine away from what was still an encouraging showing, amid ongoing speculation he might retire at season’s end.

Tensions at McLaren

Daniel Ricciardo is another driver doing his best to smile through the all-too-painful criticism of his recent performances. Having finished a miserable 13^th in Monaco, he at least showed a bit of the old Ricciardo spirit in Baku after batting away talk of tension with McLaren team boss Zak Brown.

He and Lando Norris ran on split strategies, Riccardo started on the hard tyre and the Briton on the medium. Running in tandem, Riccardo did as he was told and backed off from passing Norris earlier on despite running potentially faster, then jumped Lando by stopping under the VSC. Late in the race, Norris gained on his team-mate – but was told on the radio to hold station. That niggled but, ever the team player, the younger driver put a brave face on the sensible call and accepted the bigger picture of two McLarens finishing in the points being more important than in what order. As Norris also acknowledged, finishing either eighth or ninth made little difference anyway, as the pair came home behind Fernando Alonso (seventh) but ahead of the other Alpine driven by Ocon (tenth).

Images courtesy of Motorsport Images.