Pole sitter Charles Leclerc frustrated again; father of F2 driver loses it, and more from Baku.
- Ferrari’s Title Hopes Hang by a Thread
- Leclerc is F1’s Top Qualifier in ’22
- Pierre Gasly Excellent for AlphaTauri
- A Rough Day for Canadians
- F2 Driver Hits Penalty Points Limit, Will Miss Race
- F1 Azerbaijan Grand Prix
Max Verstappen stamped his authority on the 2022 Formula 1 title battle with his fifth victory of the season as Ferrari’s faltering season worsened in Azerbaijan.
Verstappen cruised, winning by 20.8 seconds over runner-up and teammate Sergio Perez. Mercedes’ George Russell completed the podium, 45 seconds back. They were the only two challengers within a minute of the leader, as fourth-place Lewis Hamilton of Mercedes was 1 minute, 11 seconds back of the winner.
Meanwhile, pole sitter Charles Leclerc completed just 21 laps before his engine let go.
Verstappen now leads Perez by 21 points in the championship standings. Leclerc, who led the standings through the early part of the season, now trails by 34 points.
Charles Leclerc’s F1 title hopes seem to be slipping away after a dismal showing in Azerbaijan.
Peter J FoxGetty Images
Ferrari’s Title Hopes Hang by a Thread
It was riding high in April, shot down in May, but while Frank Sinatra sang about getting back on top in June Ferrari has yet to adhere to that mantra. That’s life, at the moment, for a Ferrari fan.
Ferrari’s strong early form feels a lifetime ago and it now faces an 80-point chasm to Red Bull. Charles Leclerc, who was 46 clear of Verstappen after Australia, is now 34 adrift of the reigning champion.
Carlos Sainz was running a lonely fourth in the first stint, having deliberately conserved his tires, when he suffered a hydraulics issue, removing him from contention.
Leclerc used the virtual safety car phase caused by his team-mate’s failure in order to pit, minimising the time loss, thereby ostensibly adopting a two-stop strategy compared to Red Bull’s expected sole stop. The strategy never got a chance to play out because after 20 laps smoke poured from Leclerc’s F1-75 and for the second time in three Grand Prix he was out.
It marked Ferrari’s first double retirement since 2020 and delivered a crushing blow to their wavering title ambitions. To make matters worse, the failure also moves Leclerc closer to taking a grid penalty for engine changes at some stage this season.
“At the beginning of the first stint on the mediums (tires) we weren’t particularly strong, but towards the end of it, we started catching Checo (Perez),” said Leclerc. “During the Virtual Safety Car, we decided to take the opportunity and pit for Hards, which was the right thing to do. It put us in a position where we could lead the race and what we had to focus on from then on was managing the tires to the end. We then had an issue with the power unit and had to retire. It’s time to go home and reset before Canada. We have to get on top of things and come back stronger there.”
Leclerc still appeared buoyant after his failure in Spain but after the exit in Azerbaijan, which came after the disappointment of Monaco, there was a more downbeat mood.
“This is undoubtedly a bad day,” said boss Mattia Binotto. “Compared to last year, we have made great progress in terms of performance, however there is definitely still room for improvement on the reliability front.”
The only race Ferrari won on Sunday was the paddock pack-down race for Canada.
There are still 14 Grands Prix plus two Sprints (and the bonus points that go with that) left to run in 2022, but the situation has unraveled rapidly for Ferrari. Canada is now a must-win.
Charles Leclerc races to his sixth pole of the F1 season.
Aziz KarimovGetty Images
Leclerc is F1’s Top Qualifier in ’22
A startling Formula 1 statistic is that Charles Leclerc now has more career pole positions than Max Verstappen, despite having 21 fewer wins than the Dutchman.
Leclerc’s pole on Saturday in Azerbaijan was his sixth in eight races this season. Verstappen and Sergio Perez have the others. For his career, Leclerc now has 15 poles as compared to Verstappen’s 14.
Leclerc’s one-lap performance has always been special, stretching back to his Formula 2 days where he put margins on rivals that were scarcely believable in single-spec machinery. In his rookie year with Sauber he extracted stunning pace from a midfield car, in 2019 with Ferrari he bagged seven poles while in 2020 and 2021 he excelled despite Ferrari’s limitations. Some of the 2020 laps were almost physics-defying.
Perhaps it shouldn’t be a surprise that he has therefore starred on Saturdays. Baku was a striking example of that. Sitting second after the first runs, with the top four drivers split by under two tenths of a second, Leclerc delivered another stunning lap that put him ahead by almost three-tenths of a second. Corners where Leclerc has maybe struggled during the build-up to Q3 he manages to perfect when it matters.
“Turn 2 I was losing all the time and on my final lap I just released the brakes and prayed that it was okay,” said Leclerc matter-of-factly. It was a precise lap delivered under pressure, just as two events ago in Spain, when he grabbed pole after spinning on his first lap. Leclerc had to dance between the walls during the corner-heavy second sector to compensate for Red Bull’s slight straight-line speed advantage, and he did so.
Leclerc has four poles in a row, six overall from eight in 2022, and his two non-poles were front-row starts.
Pierre Gasly placed a season-best fifth for AlphaTauri.
Peter FoxGetty Images
Pierre Gasly Excellent for AlphaTauri
Several drivers in the midfield had excellent days but one of the standouts was AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly. A year on from a surprise podium Gasly put in a mature display to grab fifth position, AlphaTauri’s best result of the season, ending his four-race run without points.
“It’s been pretty incredible for us today,” said Gasly. Finishing in the top five is really good, especially considering how the start of our year has played out. We’ve not had that much luck so far, so it was important to get a clean weekend, which is what we’ve achieved here in Baku.”
But there was frustration on the other side of the garage. Yuki Tsunoda was set for sixth but damage around his DRS flap forced him into an unscheduled stop that dropped him out of the top 10, with AlphaTauri taking the advanced technological solution of strapping gaffer tape around the failed component.
Lance Stroll’s struggles continued in Azerbaijan.
Bryn Lennon – Formula 1Getty Images
A Rough Day for Canadians
Formula 1 next weekend returns to Canada for the first time since 2019 and local spectators will have two Canadians to cheer on around Circuit Gilles Villeneuve. But they are unlikely to have much to smile about given the form of Lance Stroll and Nicholas Latifi, a trend that continued in Azerbaijan.
Aston Martin’s Stroll had two crashes in successive laps in qualifying, the latter terminal, and retired from the race after the team detected unusual oscillations coming from the AMR22.
He has scored just two points this year compared to the 13 amassed by Sebastian Vettel, who was an excellent sixth in Azerbaijan.
Latifi, meanwhile, is one of only two full-time drivers yet to score and rumors continue to surface over his future with Williams. In Azerbaijan his prospects were stymied from the start when he copped a 10-second stop-and-go penalty after one of his mechanics touched his car within 15 seconds of the formation lap beginning, which is a violation of the regulations. He then received a five-second penalty later in the race for ignoring blue flags.
Stroll and Latifi will both need a step up in performance, and some fortune, to bag a strong result on home soil next Sunday.
Amaury Cordeel will miss the next F1 race in Canada after reaching the penalty points limit in Azerbaijan.
Bryn Lennon – Formula 1Getty Images
F2 Driver Hits Penalty Points Limit, Will Miss Race
Formula 2 uses the same rules as Formula 1 with regards to penalty points, in that a driver receives a one-event suspension if they amass 12. That has already happened in Formula 2, with backmarker Amaury Cordeel hitting the mark after a collision in Azerbaijan, which came after some sloppy driving earlier in the year. He will have to sit out the next round at Silverstone.
Father of F2 Drivers Loses Credentials Following Incident
And elsewhere in F2, the father of another driver, Cem Bolukbasi, will have his paddock credentials revoked for that upcoming round. Bolukbasi and Roy Nissany collided at Turn 2 in Azerbaijan, with Nissany deemed responsible and handed a grid penalty.
After the race, Bolukbasi’s father, Yavuz, went with Bolukbasi’s manager to the tent of Nissany’s DAMS team. Yavuz, according to the stewards, “lost his temper when he thought that Nissany made a derogatory comment about his son and provoked a heated verbal exchange.”
As this escalated, Nissany’s trainer become involved and “there was some pushing and physical contact between Yavuz and the trainer.” No punches were exchanged, but it was determined that Yavuz had been in breach of the International Sporting Code and has had his credentials revoked for Silverstone.
F1 Azerbaijan Grand Prix
Results
- Max Verstappen, Red Bull, 51 laps
- Sergio Perez, Red Bull, +20.8 seconds
- George Russell, Mercedes, +45.9
- Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes, +1:11.6
- Pierre Gasly, AlphaTauri, +1:17.2
- Sebastian Vettel, Aston Martin, +1:24.0
- Fernando Alonso, Alpine, +1:28.5
- Daniel Ricciardo, McLaren, +1:32.2
- Lando Norris, McLaren, +1:32.5
- Esteban Ocon, Alpine, +1:48.1
- Valtteri Bottas, Alfa Romeo, +1 lap
- Alexander Albon, Williams, +1 lap
- Yuki Tsunoda, AlfaTauri, +1 lap
- Mick Schumacher, Haas, +1 lap
- Nicholas Latifi, Williams, +1 lap
- Lance Stroll, Aston Martin, +1 lap
- Kevin Magnussen, Haas, +20 laps
- Zhou Guanyu, Alfa Romeo, +28 laps
- Charles Leclerd, Ferrari, +30 laps
- Carlos Sainz Jr., Ferrari, +43 laps
Formula 1 Drivers’ Standings
- Max Verstappen 150
- Sergio Perez 129
- Charles Leclerc 116
- George Russell 99
- Carlos Sainz Jr. 83
- Lewis Hamilton 62
- Lando Norris 50
- Valtteri Bottas 40
- Esteban Ocon 31
- Pierre Gasly 16
- Fernando Alonso 16
- Kevin Magnussen 15
- Daniel Ricciardo 15
- Sebastian Vettel 13
- Yuki Tsunoda 11
- Alexander Albon 3
- Lance Stroll 2
- Zhou Guanyu 1
- Mick Schumacher 0
- Nico Hulkenberg 0
- Nicholas Latifi 0
F1 Team Standings
- Red Bull 279
- Ferrari 199
- Mercedes 161
- McLaren 65
- Alpine 47
- Alfa Romeo 41
- AlphaTauri 27
- Haas 15
- Aston Martin 15
- Williams 3
Keyword: F1 Notes from Azerbaijan Grand Prix: Max Verstappen Makes it Look Easy