Grand Prix 2019 Azerbaijan Grand Prix (990th GP) Practice, Qualifying & Race Discussion

F1's whistle stop tour of countries with small F1 fan bases and dodgy human rights comes to Azerbaijan in the last week of April for a race round the 'historic' city streets of Baku. You can tell it's 'historic' because there is a castle and everything. It's fair to say that when this Grand Prix was first put on the calendar it was universally hated. Firstly it was yet another street circuit, secondly it called itself the European Grand Prix when Azerbijan is not in Europe, and thirdly it was set up to clash with the 24 hour race at Le Mans. Frankly it was the worst PR campaign since someone said "hey Mr Millerband let's get a picture of you eating that bacon sandwich" - however a few years in and something has changed. It turns out that the circuit lay out generates interesting races and now, for the first time, the majority of the F1 fan base are looking forward to coming back here.

So why does the layout create good racing? Well basically it's two circuits in one with a tight twisty technical section and a silly long blast down it straight. Modern F1 cars struggle to set up for both meaning teams have to try and strike a balance which leads to some getting it spot on and some very wrong. The straight is so long that it brings old fashioned drafting and slipstream back into play. This means you can do this thing called overtaking which is an old fashioned concept in F1 but a good one. The other reason it creates good racing is there is very little run off area and, as modern F1 drivers seen incapable of colouring between the lines, this leads to accident, which in turn leads to bunched up racing and mixed up positions.

This will only be the 4th running of the race but already the track has many memorable moments. The Force India's playing demolition derby with each other. The early FINNish (Kimi and Bottas collide). Vettel's moment of road rage. Bottas getting Lance Stroll on the line for 2nd. The Red Bulls taking each other out. Lewis having loose straps. Bottas last lap puncture. Vettel's lunge for the lead. When you list it like that you realise how much has happened here in only a few races. Let's hope for another classic. God knows F1 needs it right now after the snorefest of China and ever falling viewing figures.

A quick look at the form book and you'd have to be brave to bet against Mercedes. Closer inspection shows that Bottas has always been good round here and might be worth a punt. Bottas has impressed me this season so far. It's very hard to impress when your team mate is Lewis Hamilton but there seems more fire in him. Taking a look over at the red side of the grid you would think the grunt of the Ferrari's engine would give them a distinct advantage with the long straight in Baku but let's not underestimate Ferrari's capacity for self destruction. I'm sure they will try drafting in quali and I'm sure they will mess it up. I'm fascinated to see how the Red Bull goes this weekend as the Honda engine now does seem capable of being respectable in power situation. With the potential for a mixed up race you would think Red Bull would be all over this one, however street circuits do not tend to be Verstappen's speciality as he tends to hit things (or cars). I also fully expect to see some exploding Renault engines this weekend - although if we get into proper mixed up race territory then keep your eye on Danny Ric. Your dark horse from the midfield? This is Giovanazzi's favourite track and he has gone very well here in other formula.

For your amusement here is your Azerbaijan bingo card. Tick them off as and when they happen and see if you can get a full house:

- The word 'historic' will be utter at least 5 times when discussing the city in commentary

- It's just like Macau will be uttered every twenty mins.

- at least one team will try drafting in qualifying

- at least one team will mess up drafting in qualifying

- one of the commentators will tell us how beautiful the city is and how we should all come visit

- Verstappen will hit something or someone

- Perez will hit something or someone (bonus if it's his team mate)

- at least two punctures

- at least 3 safety cars

- at least 4 mentions of Vettel's road rage incident

- Toto Wolff telling us how they love circuits like this because it creates mixed up racing whilst simultaneously looking like he can't stand the place.

 

[Izumi]

Izumi Now Vettel is saying Mercedes domination is boring ... a bit rich coming from a guy who had the fastest car during his 4 of his 6 years at Red Bull

Not surprisingly, I disagree. RBR had undisputedly a fast car during Vettel's years, that is not disputed. What is however disputed is mantra that it was the fastest car. Horner would suggest it was Vettel's driving style which made him fast in the turns, good enough to win him a lot of races.

Not too long ago I read litany by one Hamilton's fan that Vettel was lucky in 2 of his WDC, and the other 2 he had the fastest car. So, there you go, another "expert" opinion, and another half-truth perpetuated ad infinitum on various forums. This fellow of course either forgot, or haven't noticed in his zeal all about disparity between Mercedes and the rest on grid for past 4 or 5 years.

More importantly ...IMO... prior hybrid era, other teams could redesign elements of the car to match RBR, and challenge Vettel. Aero pieces (or chassis) do change all the time, thus teams could realistically compete.

Since 2014 this has changed. Mercedes has best hybrid design, and with all restrictiveness in place, and freezing design first year of introduction, Mercedes drivers had virtually guaranteed victories for years to come. There was no way with this idio*** point system anyone could fix their power unit.
When Hamilton lost to Rosberg in 2016, Tony Kanaan said about Hamilton (paraphrasing) "he drives in championship of two cars, comes second best, and bragging about it". That about sums it up for me as well.

 

[Publius Cornelius Scipio]

Publius Cornelius Scipio The Schumacher years of team orders and Alonso - Hockenheim in some way paints what people think of Ferrari - break the rules and basically get nothing but a slap on the wrist. Which is why every time there is team orders at Ferrari - it is met with consternation ( for a moment I was going to spell constipation)

Everyone said that those things were wrong, whereas when it was Mercedes' turn to impose team orders a considerable amount of the individuals who complained when Ferrari imposed team orders decided to keep quite when the culprit was Mercedes...

regarding Ferrari it looks to me as if their problems started around 1951, and before it was Alfa Romeo that was in the wrong, there are some people who simply can't be happy when someone else is doing well. Since we're talking of Mercedes, when Mercedes was a truly German thing (unlike now when it's German in name only) they suffered the same fate as Ferrari and Alfa, they were blamed for everything (including Le Mans 1955...). A bit like Schumacher/Vettel/Alonso etc

All this to say that it looks to me as if Ferrari is wrong by default for some people, I wonder what they could do to improve their image? I have an idea but I'll keep it to myself

 

[Publius Cornelius Scipio]

Publius Cornelius Scipio The Schumacher years of team orders and Alonso - Hockenheim in some way paints what people think of Ferrari - break the rules and basically get nothing but a slap on the wrist. Which is why every time there is team orders at Ferrari - it is met with consternation ( for a moment I was going to spell constipation)

Oh let's not forget that when Ferrari was issuing team orders in favour of Schumacher McLaren was issuing team orders in favour of Hakkinen, but that was ok, wasn't it? that never induced constipations, isn't it the case? I'd call this an example of excellent sportsmanship

 

[Angel]

Oh let's not forget that when Ferrari was issuing team orders in favour of Schumacher McLaren was issuing team orders in favour of Hakkinen, but that was ok, wasn't it? that never induced constipations, isn't it the case? I'd call this an example of excellent sportsmanship

I think you meant consternation, not constipation Publius Cornelius Scipio

You're right though, team orders at Ferrari are always seen as a bad thing for some, but when anyone else does it no one bats an eyelid and that is just not fair. Saying that, I don't like team orders when anyone does it, to me the fans get cheated when that happens, but I understand it's a team sport and so on and so forth.

 

[sobriety]

I think it's mostly a hangover from the good old bad old days where Schumacher was more or less contractually obliged to win the race if it was in Ferrari's power to make it happen.

Using Baku as an example, it would mean Mecerdes ordering Bottas out of the way on the last lap to let Hamilton win, which Merc don't generally do early on in the season. As it gets later they will favour one driver, what'll be interesting is if Bottas gets 10-15 points clear of Hamilton...

 

[Ruslan]

F1 2019: Karun Chandhok on the Azerbaijan GP's big talking points

Should not Ferrari be blamed for putting LeClerc on mediums when it was not necessary

I have not checked the lap times....but it looked like to me that a couple of laps after Leclerc put the soft tires on....he was doing slower times than Vettel on used mediums. If that is the case, Ferrari did the right thing to hold off going onto softs until as late as they could.

 

[Ruslan]

You're right though, team orders at Ferrari are always seen as a bad thing for some, but when anyone else does it no one bats an eyelid and that is just not fair. Saying that, I don't like team orders when anyone does it, to me the fans get cheated when that happens, but I understand it's a team sport and so on and so forth.

All teams at various times issue team orders. It is a fact of life. I think I draw the line:

1. When they are issued early in the season.
2. When they clearly favor one driver over the other from the start.
3. When there is not a significant point difference between the drivers.

If the drivers are running different pit strategies in a race, then they make sense. If it is late in the season, and one driver is in the hunt for the championship and other is not, it makes sense. Before then....well.....I have some issues with it. Back in the days of Senna/Prost at McLaren, I believe Ron Dennis used to allow them to race until the last 20 laps of the race, and then told them to hold position. I can understand that. But some teams have used teams orders to favor drivers since the beginning of the season. I get the sense that this is the concern with Ferrari. And while most teams have used team orders at various times, I do get the impression that Ferrari has made more use of them over the decades.

I do question the teams orders Ferrari gave in the first race favoring Vettel and have some questions about the order to Leclerc not to pass yet (which he ignored). I do not blame Ferrari for the pit stop strategy they used for Leclerc at Azerbaijan.

 

[Publius Cornelius Scipio]

it looked like to me that a couple of laps after Leclerc put the soft tires on....he was doing slower times than Vettel on used mediums.

this point has been raised before and no one answered it, I think that you are absolutely right in raising it again, the problem is that if we accept this simple evidence there is not much to talk about last Sunday's race... the bottom line is that the SF90 is not as good as that Mercedes and we have to accept it, let's hope that Mercedes will let their drivers race each other until the end of the season because otherwise it doesn't look good for 2019.

A final note on the Ferrari/Vettel/Leclerc story: I understand that some might be tempted to use Leclerc to hit Vettel, the point is that Leclerc is very young and not very experienced and has to deal with a very difficult car and if left to his own devices he might make some mistakes, with all due respct it looks to me as if some people (obviously I'm not referring to people on this forum, we don't have such an impact on F1...) are playing with the career of a very promising driver, give him a season or two and he'll be WDC material, if he has a lot of pressure on himself to beat Vettel he might make some mistakes and that won't help his cause. Suggesting that Ferrari are destroying his races on purposes might be "fun" (but not very sporty) for some but most likely this won't help Leclerc

 

[Publius Cornelius Scipio]

I do not blame Ferrari for the pit stop strategy they used for Leclerc at Azerbaijan.

I think that with hindsight they should have tried the same strategy with Vettel, the SF90 had some very significant issues with the red tyres, Ferrari should have known, on the yellows Vettel might have had the chance to challenge the Mercs on track and when you're in front anything can happen, by giving him that strategy they accepted that he was going to finish behind the Mercs without even trying to challnge them

 

[Publius Cornelius Scipio]

I think you meant consternation, not constipation Publius Cornelius Scipio

 

[Izumi]

Favoring of one driver over his teammate might start much earlier than some (non tech) people realize. Well in advance before season begins. For me most telling example was paring of Alonso with Kimi. The car was designed around Alonso, and Kimi just had to "bent over" much to the delight of Alonso's fans.. I am not sure what is happening at Ferrari right now, and how close in driving style those two are, but only one driver seems happy. BTW, I do not buy into cliche that "good driver can drive "anything"". Examples bursting at seams with cases proving exactly opposite, when we had Hamilton screaming how unhappy he was with a setup of his car, and there were others. Drivers need to find their sweet spot, that much is certain. It's only Vettel who gets negative headlines the same day as soon as he dares to admit how he feels out of synch with his racer.

 

[Ruslan]

this point has been raised before and no one answered it, I think that you are absolutely right in raising it again...

I noticed that everyone ignored it. I was waiting for someone to post up the late race lap times for Leclerc and Vettel.

 

[Ruslan]

A final note on the Ferrari/Vettel/Leclerc story: I understand that some might be tempted to use Leclerc to hit Vettel, the point is that Leclerc is very young and not very experienced and has to deal with a very difficult car...

People are expecting great things out of Leclerc. I can only think of a few cases where a rookie driver was as fast as the established veteran star (Hamilton vs Alonso comes to mind). There is a reason they are established veteran stars. Right now, the comparative stats are:

............................Qualifying........On Track........Points
Vettel-Leclerc......3-1..................3-1..................52-47

Now some of this has been influenced by team orders (especially the first race), but if we look at the practice times we see (there have been 12 of them):

Vettel-Leclerc: 7-5

This is very close. We shall see how it shakes out over the next couple of races. They have each made a major mistake (unless I am forgetting something...which does happen).

 

[Il_leone]

Ruslan Sorry I meant the medium tyres in quali when there was no need to and put him at risk when he would have started the race on softs



As for the race - the tyres he was on already doing 3 seconds a lap slower ... Ross Brawn in that situation would have said bring him in.

 

[Il_leone]

Izumi

Yes Mercedes dominating F1 is not good especially if there is no inter team battles. However it has to be said Vettel and Ferrari could have won the last two drivers championship which would paint a different picture on the situation.

I wonder just how much Vettel is telling his management to keep dialogue open with Toto Wolff trying to get himself a seat at Mercedes

 

[Izumi]

Izumi

Yes Mercedes dominating F1 is not good especially if there is no inter team battles. However it has to be said Vettel and Ferrari could have won the last two drivers championship which would paint a different picture on the situation.

I wonder just how much Vettel is telling his management to keep dialogue open with Toto Wolff trying to get himself a seat at Mercedes

Forgive me, but these are preposterous (or cute by half) comments to make on both counts.

 

[Il_leone]

First point I think Ferrari and Vettel were good enough to have won the last two championships if they got their act together and cut out the errors and poor communications

Second point if you were Vettel, - if you can;t beat them then join them surely any driver who harbours being the best would want to get into the best car unless they are happy sitting on the money they earn

 

[220]

Had team orders Friday night in the V8 supercars race, RBR who have won 7 championships in the last 10 years ordered one of their drivers who was 4th to let their faster team mate through.
Didnt happen with the 4th place driver saying to the team although the team mate was quicker he didnt have a chance to catch and fight for 3rd in the remaining laps. RBR gave them the OK to race for the remaining laps.

As it should have been IMHO, both drivers are still in contention for the championship. Team orders would not have resulted in more points for the team only the finishing order of their drivers.I guess for something like that to happen the team needs to have 100% confidence their drivers are sensible and mature enough to race without taking each other out or compromising their finishing positions.

I guess in a way drivers are actually to blame for team orders, if teams trusted them to race each other without incident or compromising their race they would be more reluctant to make calls from the pit wall.