Round 15 of this year's F1 World Championship takes place in the Azerbaijani capital of Baku on the shores of the Caspian Sea. This street circuit has been part of the calendar for a decade now, but in its short time in the world of Formula 1, it has delivered a history of providing huge drama. Charles Leclerc has had his well-documented issues with turn 15, crashing there three times over the years. Max Verstappen clashed with Daniel Ricciardo in 2018 approaching turn one and also had a tyre blow out in the 2021 race. The ensuing chaos resulted with Lewis Hamilton going straight on at the restart having selected an incorrect brake setting. The combination of tight twisty nature of a city circuit set against the contrast of the incredibly long straight makes set up a real challenge and often a real compromise.
All the talk in the practice sessions of this weekend has been of the wind and the slip stream making the crucial difference in qualifying and in the race. There have been repeated gusts of up to 40km/hr, which are unsettling for the cars going through corners and make a huge difference on the 2.2km main straight. Energy deployment again was a hot topic in the paddock as this generation of cars are finding themselves energy starved by the end of the straight. Deciding when to use the electrical component of the power delivery can make a difference of up to 20km/hr.
After a blistering qualifying, George Russell would have been hoping for a solid start and a boring race. He got his first wish as he made a strong start from P1 - helped by the fact that he started from the clean side of the grid. The McLarens initially started well, but then the Red Bulls started to show their true speed on Lap 2 carving through the field until they met the rolling road block of Oscar Piastri who was just about fast enough to stop any overtaking attempts.
During the middle of the race, everything seemed to settled down. The overtakes stopped, the gaps all levelled out as tyre conservation and strategy entered all the drivers minds. The puzzle was what to do for the Red Bull Team. While Verstappen was in 3rd on the medium tyre, he was under increasing pressure from the returning Hadjar just behind him on the soft tyre. It seemed clear that they should let their younger charge through to put pressure on Piastri. The team chose to let their lead driver do the leading, but the radio calls from Hadjar became increasingly frustrated.
Then, out of nowhere, the race really came to life.
Alex Albon crashed on lap 31 leading to a full safety car as his Williams had to be removed from the Tecpro barriers. Nearly every car took the opportunity to put fresh tyres on as the field bunched up, with more than half the race distance covered and a mix of tyre compounds in use we were due to be treated to a modified sprint race of sorts.
But, we had to wait for the 'sprint' race to get going fully! Franco Colapinto made a complete hash of the restart and ploughed into his teammate Pierre Gasly and McLaren's Lando Norris, knocking them all out of the race at turn 1. Colapinto's bosses at Alpine will be furious that his carelessness has cost the team a large amount of points. Norris was similarly angry in the press pen after the race said "there are some drivers out there who should not be in Formula 1" and called for race bans for drivers who make such mistakes. Strong words indeed from the current world champion.
The safety car was inevitably deployed for a second time while the mess was cleaned up, but after the dust settled it was now the Haas team that found itself in with a chance for an unusually large haul of points with Ocon in 7th and Bearman in 8th at the time. They had to hold of the fast-closing Lindblad if they wanted to finish that way, but ultimately the speed of the Racing Bulls car on the preferable soft tyre was too much for the Haas drivers combined efforts.
At the front George Russell and Max Verstappen dropped the rest of the field and headed into the setting sun on their own. The pair exchanged fastest laps repeatedly, opening up a gap back to Hadjar in third. Lap after lap Verstappen would get close to the Mercedes by the end of the straight, but just not quite close enough to make a decisive move.
There was time for one more spanner in the works as Valtteri Bottas crashed his Cadillac in turn 15, getting in the way of Russell and Verstappen on their final lap. It closed the gap right up in the final charge down to the finish line, but Russell had just enough to get the job done and claim his third race win of the season. Leclerc came home in 4th ahead of Antonelli in 5th and Hamilton in 6th. A very quiet outing for Ferrari. Carlos Sainz took the final point in 10th.
All this means that Kimi Antonelli's championship lead is reduced down to 66 points, a commanding lead at this stage of the season, but Russell's hopes are still alive. Asked after the race why he was so improved this weekend, he said, "I think it's just having more experience with the new driving style I've adopted. I feel more myself, which is great." Perhaps he has truly turned a corner?
Isack Hadjar can be very satisfied with his third podium in Formula 1, returning to the paddock following his injury and commented, "It has been a very long 6 weeks since I've enjoyed myself. I felt strong. You can end up in the wall very quickly, but I didn't do that! My first podium on pure pace, so I'm delighted."
Next up is the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia next weekend. A confusing title, but it will be great to see F1 back at the Sepang International Circuit. The Grand Prix will return to being held on the Sunday, and in a rare treat for Australian viewers, it will start at 6pm Melbourne/Sydney time - enjoy it fellow Australians, after here our sport is going to get slightly harder to follow for those in our time zone!
