@Max33Verstappen claims #AzerbaijanGP victory as @ScuderiaFerrari suffers double-DNF. #F1 #BakuGP

Verstappen Azerbaijan GP victory – Max Verstappen lead Red Bull to a one-two victory at the Azerbaijan GP once Ferrari endured a horrific double DNF as pole-sitter Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz retired.

 

 

The reigning world champion extending his World Driver’s Championship points lead from nine to 34 points over Leclerc – who started from his sixth pole position of the season – as he clinched his fourth victory in five Grands Prix over team-mate Sergio Perez by 20.823 seconds.

 

Verstappen’s 25^th-career win arrived after passing early leader Perez for the provisional lead, with Leclerc running out-of-sync due to pitting under the virtual safety car before his engine blew spectacularly.

 

With Sainz also eliminated from the race due to the reliability problems of the Ferrari power-trains, the path was set for Verstappen to claim victory as Mercedes’ George Russell completed the podium.

 

Most of the grid were fitted with fresh Pirelli C4 yellow side-walled medium compounds, except for Aston Martin’s Sebastian Vettel and Haas F1 Team’s Kevin Magnussen (scrub set) along with McLaren’s Daniel Ricciardo, and the rear starting Aston Martin AMR22 entry of Lance Stroll and Haas F1 Team’s Mick Schumacher who assembled with the C3 white-branded harder rubber.

 

Perez was given encouragement over the team radio to get his “elbows out into turn one” which he did.

 

When the 51 lap Azerbaijan GP began, pole-sitter Leclerc’s initial run off the line was good enough, but wheel-spin in the second phase allowed Perez to move alongside the Ferrari as Verstappen was boxed in after the best launch of the lot.

 

The Monegasque driver then suffered a lock-up of his front-left into the opening left-hand corner to run wide of the apex and ensured Perez took the lead of the Grand Prix.

 

Verstappen was able to get a look up the inside of Leclerc but held off as Sainz tried to get involved before dropping off from the front running three.

 

Perez completed the first tour with a 1.3 second gap over Leclerc to rapidly pull out of the DRS zone extended his lead by over half a second on the following couple of laps to keep first place.

 

With Leclerc’s F1-75 racer sliding around, Verstappen was able to close within 0.7 second of his title-rival.

 

Leclerc endured a wobble out of turn 16, the last corner, to allow Verstappen to get even closer with DRS assistance before the yellow flags were waving then the virtual safety car was deployed.

 

Two Ferrari’s went down to one as Sainz suffered a hydraulics issue and was forced to retired down the turn four run-off area whilst five seconds behind Verstappen and five in-front of Russell.

 

Ferrari took the gamble of calling in Leclerc in for a free pit-stop and put on a set of harder tyres on the tenth tour despite no mistake, the Prancing Horse held the Monegasque driver to a slow 5.4 second stop.

 

Red Bull did not cover the strategy, as Perez had a lead of over two seconds to team-mate Verstappen as Leclerc emerged 11 seconds behind the duo – but from the 13^th tour began posting the fastest laps of the Grand Prix.

 

Verstappen was able to cut into Perez’s lead before the Mexican, who fell two seconds on one lap, was ordered “no fighting” to allow his DRS-assisted team-mate to claim the lead on the 15^th lap into the opening tour.

 

At the end of the following lap, Perez stopped for softs but like front-row sitter Leclerc, was hindered by a massively slow 5.7 stop due to a problem with the front-left wheel.

 

Red Bull brought in Verstappen to give him a set of the hards two tours later, and he too had endured a 3.5 second stop to emerge in second place with a 13 second deficit to Leclerc – managing overheating rears – as Perez snatched the fastest lap from the Ferrari driver whilst running four seconds behind Verstappen.

 

But very hot rubber was the least of Leclerc’s problems as disaster struck on the 20^th lap when engine blew in the final few corners and travelled slowly into the pit-lane to end Ferrari’s horror day in Baku.

 

After suffering an MGU-H and Turbo failure at the Spanish Grand Prix, it was the second engine-based retirement for Leclerc in three races to add to the lost Ferrari 1-2 strategy blunder in Monaco.

 

This left Verstappen in first place by 5.2 seconds over Perez as Russell who started fifth on the grid, moved into contention for a podium in-front of Ricciardo, AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly and Mercedes team-mate Sir Lewis Hamilton.

 

Verstappen would set targeted lap-times with his engineer as they tried to find a balance between preserving the RB18, but not allowing the tyres to cool down too much.

 

The virtual safety car was then deployed again when the 16^th-starting Haas of Magnussen, who had made his way up to 11^th to fight with Alpine’s Esteban Ocon for points.

 

But then the Ferrari engine in the back of the VF-22 also failed and went along with other Ferrari customer-powered Alfa Romeo of Zhou Guanyu who was forced to retire eight tours early.

 

Magnussen peeled off on the approach to turn 15 and waved to the marshals to help recover his Haas VF-22 racer, which started rolling down the hill towards the apex.

 

Red Bull reacted by bringing in Verstappen for a second time to put on a set of hards to the chequered flag, finally receiving a solid 2.7 stop, before Perez pitted for hards on the same lap 34.

 

But a left-rear delay meant more time was lost for the Mexican due to a 4.4 second stop, to give his team-mate Verstappen a ten second gap when the four-minute virtual safety car was removed.

 

Although it was Perez who ended the Grand Prix with the fastest lap bonus point, Verstappen’s second half of the race saw his pace extend his gap to 20.823 seconds to the chequered flag.

 

Russell endured a lonely race but benefitted from Ferrari’s disastrous double-DNF to secure a podium despite the Silver Arrow’s own struggles with porpoising and a draggy F1 W13 on the streets of Baku.

 

Despite suffering back pain, Hamilton clinched fourth place thanks to a great drive with notable passes on the one-stopping trio of Ricciardo and AlphaTauri pairing Yuki Tsunoda and Gasly.

 

Gasly did manage his stint on the C3 harder compounds for the long haul well, taking home fifth in the classification as Aston Martin’s Vettel recovered strongly from an early error to finish sixth.

 

Despite starting on a scrub set of mediums, Vettel was fighting with Hamilton for seventh place before pitting for harder rubber to then chase after Ocon’s A522.

 

The Aston Martin overtook the Alpine for ninth place on the 13^th tour before suffering a lock-up at turn three to abort the corner and spin in the run-off area, narrowly missing the approaching Tsunoda when returning in 12^th.

 

The other Alpine A522 entry of Fernando Alonso was also another big mover, securing seventh for the Enstone-French alliance as Ricciardo just managed to keep his McLaren team-mate Lando Norris by only three-tenths, as the McLaren duo both made their case to the team for track position in the earlier and closing stages of the Grand Prix as both ran alternate strategies.

 

Ocon’s long initial stint on the hards saw the Frenchman take the final points place as Alfa Romeo’s Valtteri Bottas settled for 11^th.

 

Williams Racing’s Alexander Albon came home in 12^th and in-front of Tsunoda, who had to stop for some tape to his rear wing after his DRS flap split in half. Haas F1 Team’s Schumacher crossed the line in 14^th place.

 

The other Williams of Nicholas Latifi had his race over before it began as the Canadian was hit with a 10-second time penalty when a team mechanic rolled his FW44 racer back on the grid, illegally touching the car.

 

He was then also slapped with a five-second time penalty for ignoring blue flags.

 

Aston Martin’s Stroll joined the retirees of Magnussen, Zhou and the Ferrari pairing.

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2022 Azerbaijan GP – The Top Three

 

 

2022 Azerbaijan GP Winner – Max Verstappen, #1, Oracle Red Bull Racing-RBPT, RB18:

“Today we had incredible pace in the car, we could look after the tyres and chip away at it. A tiny bit lucky with the retirement but the car was quick today. To have a 1-2 as a team as well, a really good day for us.”

 

2^nd Place – Sergio Perez, #11, Oracle Red Bull Racing-RBPT, RB18:

“Unfortunately, we missed the VSC stop, there was some miscommunication, we were a bit unlucky there. At the restart, I got too much deg on the medium tyre, it was extremely high for me, and Max was stronger on that medium stint.”

 

3^rd Place – George Russell, #63, Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One Team, F1 W13 E Performance:

“We’ve got to be there to pick up the pieces, the cars are going through a torrid time with the bouncing so pleased to bring it home in P3.”

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Formula 1 Azerbaijan Grand Prix 2022 Race Results Classification (51 Laps)

 

POS	NO	DRIVER	CAR	LAPS	TIME/RETIRED	PTS
1	1	Max Verstappen	RED BULL RACING RBPT	51	1:34:05.941	25
2	11	Sergio Perez	RED BULL RACING RBPT	51	+20.823s	19
3	63	George Russell	MERCEDES	51	+45.995s	15
4	44	Lewis Hamilton	MERCEDES	51	+71.679s	12
5	10	Pierre Gasly	ALPHATAURI RBPT	51	+77.299s	10
6	5	Sebastian Vettel	ASTON MARTIN ARAMCO MERCEDES	51	+84.099s	8
7	14	Fernando Alonso	ALPINE RENAULT	51	+88.596s	6
8	3	Daniel Ricciardo	MCLAREN MERCEDES	51	+92.207s	4
9	4	Lando Norris	MCLAREN MERCEDES	51	+92.556s	2
10	31	Esteban Ocon	ALPINE RENAULT	51	+108.184s	1
11	77	Valtteri Bottas	ALFA ROMEO FERRARI	50	+1 lap	0
12	23	Alexander Albon	WILLIAMS MERCEDES	50	+1 lap	0
13	22	Yuki Tsunoda	ALPHATAURI RBPT	50	+1 lap	0
14	47	Mick Schumacher	HAAS FERRARI	50	+1 lap	0
15	6	Nicholas Latifi	WILLIAMS MERCEDES	50	+1 lap	0
16	18	Lance Stroll	ASTON MARTIN ARAMCO MERCEDES	46	DNF	0
NC	20	Kevin Magnussen	HAAS FERRARI	31	DNF	0
NC	24	Zhou Guanyu	ALFA ROMEO FERRARI	23	DNF	0
NC	16	Charles Leclerc	FERRARI	21	DNF	0
NC	55	Carlos Sainz	FERRARI	8	DNF	0

* Provisional results

https://www.formula1.com/en/results.html/2022/races/1126/azerbaijan/race-result.html

 

Click here for the 2022 Formula 1 World Driver’s (Top 10) and Constructors Championship Standings.

 

Round nine of the 2022 FIA Formula One World Championship heads straight to the legendary Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in Montreal, Quebec, Canada for the Formula 1 Canadian Grand Prix 2022 from Friday June 17-Sunday June 19.

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