Round 15 – Baku
Introduction
F1 was back this week, and this time they were in Azerbaijan. Baku is a street circuit (one of six on the current calendar) and it’s sort of infamous for being somewhat chaotic no matter what happens. It’s also a very pretty track; the circuit goes through the city and around a castle. This week at Baku was incredibly chaotic, which is honestly to be expected after a mini-break from racing. The entire weekend was shifted backwards a day, because it was a day of remembrance for Azerbaijan, so the race was on Saturday and qualifying was on Friday. Kimi Antonelli led the WDC by 81 points going into the weekend.
Qualifying – Friday, September 25
The start of qualifying was delayed by four minutes. Right from the start it was chaotic. Lance Stroll went off but was fine, George Russell’s front locked up, and Isack Hadjar took pole with ten minutes left in Q1, which doesn’t really mean anything, but it was still really impressive. Isack was finally back in the Red Bull since he injured his wrist over the summer break, and he also extended his Red Bull contract into next season. Alex Albon’s time was deleted at some point due to track limits, and Max Verstappen was having brake issues (again).
The big event of Q1, though, was Kimi Antonelli hitting the wall. He was okay, but the car wasn’t. His front tire was coming off the rim, and he decided he was going to drive on it anyway until his engineer told him to stop. Kimi was, officially, out of qualifying. He’d managed to qualify P7 before hitting the wall, so he’d end up in P16 at the most. Max got pole with three minutes left in the session, and then George took pole with a minute left in the session.
Nothing really happened in Q2, but Q3 was pretty fun. Red Bull released Isack extremely late, and everyone thought he was going to give Max a tow so Max could qualify higher, but that didn’t happen. Lando Norris took pole at the start of the session, but then Oscar Piastri stole it immediately. George took pole with three minutes left in the session, and Charles Leclerc and Oscar rounded out the top three. Isack qualified fourth, Max qualified eighth, and Kimi qualified sixteenth.
Race – Saturday, September 26
Baku started with a penalty for Aston Martin (they’d changed their power unit) and a penalty for Carlos Sainz (he hadn’t respected the yellow flags during Q3). Nothing really happened for a while. Kimi dropped to p17 at the start, Lando made his way up to p4, and Charles had dropped a significant margin behind Oscar. The Red Bulls were the most entertaining part of the race; they were picking people off left and right, and eventually ended up p3 and p4, respectively. Isack let Max overtake him for p3 because (I think) Max had the better pace. Kimi at this point was up to p14.
Lance Stroll once again retired from a race due to car issues.It was apparently the fourth time in a row that he’d retired. Kimi was up to p11. Isack was two to three tenths faster than Max but was apparently happy to stay behind him. I really don’t know why Red Bull didn’t let Isack go after Oscar. His tires were better than Max’s, and if he couldn’t do it, they could’ve swapped back. But of course that would have required asking Max to let his teammate by, and that’s not something you do, even if it makes sense.
Kimi finally made his way into the points after seventeen laps. Fernando Alonso retired as well, which means both Aston Martins were out of the race, which is very quickly becoming normal. Kimi moved up to p9 by lap 23, and George grazed the wall so he might have tire issues (there were no issues). Max was doing defensive maneuvers to keep Isack behind him, and Lewis Hamilton had no front and couldn’t turn. In true Ferrari fashion, they didn’t do anything about it. Max pit for soft tires, which degraded faster than the mediums he was previously on, but had more grip and therefore were better. Lando locked up and lost three places, and Kimi moved up to p8.
Alex Albon ended up in the wall, which provided a safety car and some reprieve from the monotony that was happening up until that point. Pretty much everyone pit, and there was no change in the order of cars. Isack reported gearbox vibrations, but he didn’t bring it up again, so I’m assuming it was fine. Max was up to p2 at that point. The safety car was brought into the pits, but pretty much immediately after it was brought in, Franco Colapinto locked up and crashed into his teammate, Pierre Gasly, and also Lando Norris. Franco, Pierre, and Lando were all out of the race, and the safety car was brought out again.
Kimi by this point was up to p7. Max decided he was going to try to go alongside George under the safety car, but it didn’t get him anywhere, so he just looked like an idiot. Oscar locked up and fell all the way down to p14 so it’s safe to say that McLaren were not having a good day. Max and George were, by that point, separated by a gap of one tenth of a second, and ended up having the closest finishing gap (0.0196) since 2002. Isack completed the podium in p3, marking his second for Red Bull this season.
It was the first time in six races where Kimi’s lead was cut instead of extended—he did extend his lead, but not by much—and it was the ninth closest finish in F1 history. There were also 7 DNFs (Lance, Fernando, Alex, Franco, Pierre, Lando, and Valterri) but you can’t have everything. Kimi is now leading the WDC by 66 points. Next week is the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia. It’s the first time F1 has raced in Malaysia since (I think) 2017, so most of the drivers on the grid haven’t raced there at all.
I am once again predicting either a George or Kimi pole and win, but we’ll see what happens.
