F1 Azerbaijan Grand Prix 2023: All the latest news ahead of race in Baku
Formula One is back from its month break, and there’s plenty happening. Here are all the major headlines ahead of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
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Formula One returns this weekend after a one month break.
Here are five talking points ahead of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
Red Bull winging it
Three races, three poles, three wins, two 1-2s, two fastest laps - Red Bull arrive in Azerbaijan on a magical roll. Double world champion Max Verstappen kept his cool in Melbourne to fend off Lewis Hamilton and steer clear of the triple red-flag drama, while Sergio Perez sliced through the field from last to claim fifth, and the fastest lap, in the latest display of the Red Bulls’ speed supremacy over the rest of the grid. Team boss Christian Horner praised Verstappen’s “great patience” in not getting embroiled in a Mercedes’ dog fight at the start, and was nonplussed at Mercedes’ pace. With two wins to his teammate’s one Verstappen leads Perez by 15 points, the rejuvenated Fernando Alonso is third, nine points behind the Mexican for Aston Martin, with Hamilton seven points further back approaching the fourth race of the season.
Mercedes revival?
Toto Wolff and his Mercedes men left the Australian Grand Prix with an unexpected spring in their step. Lewis Hamilton’s second place gave the fallen F1 giants reason to believe they are finally getting to grips with their mercurial car. With only one win after a chastening 2022, this season began in Bahrain with “one of their wort days in racing”. An uptick in performance in Saudi Arabia offered encouragement, while in Melbourne George Russell was also flying until his car caught fire. Team principal Wolff was quick to insist there was “no magic bullet” to transform a car that has struggled since last year’s shift in the technical landscape. But the Austrian did concede they are understanding their machine much better. “We have defined a clear direction where we need to go and I believe we are on the right trajectory.”
Sprint time
Baku stages the first of 2023’s six sprint races. Verstappen has the best sprint record, winning three of the six held since they were introduced in 2021. Baku is the first street circuit to hold a sprint race, with Horner not alone among the team principals wary of the prospect of prangs on a circuit that has a well-deserved reputation for producing the unexpected. “It’s absolutely ludicrous to be doing the first sprint race of the year in a street race like Azerbaijan,” Horner said in Australia. Whilst acknowledging for the fans excitement was almost assured, from a team’s perspective “all you can do is trash your car and it costs a lot of money around there.” Under an all-new format agreed by teams in Melbourne and voted through by the FIA on Tuesday, Saturday’s 100km dash will now be a stand alone fixture of the weekend, with its own qualifying. Unlike 2021 and 2022 the sprint result will no longer shape the grid for the main event on Sunday, qualifying for the grand prix to be held on Friday. After Baku, sprints will feature in Austria, Belgium, Qatar, Austin and Interlagos.
Tough times at Ferrari
New Ferrari boss Frederic Vasseur reckons there are “tonnes of room for improvement on the car” — Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz will certainly be hoping that’s the case. Two retirements sandwiching seventh in Jeddah left Leclerc bemoaning “the worst start to the season ever”, while Sainz seethed at a late time-penalty that dropped him from fourth to out of the points in Melbourne. That’s left F1’s most iconic team trailing behind Red Bull, Aston Martin and Mercedes in the constructors championship. With signficant upgrades planned from Miami onwards Vasseur says he has the feeling “we are moving in the right direction”. Baku though has not proved a happy hunting ground for the scuderia, with only three podiums and a double DNF last year since 2016.
Baku roulette
Baku boasts the longest straight in F1, the 2.2 kilometre Neftchilar Avenue alongside the Caspian Sea where cars break from speeds of 350kmh into the 90 degree turn one, the circuit then snaking its way through the sinuous medieval city gate section where even the slightest of mistakes can spell disaster. A different winner for each of the six races staged there is an indication of the drama that lies in store for Verstappen and company this weekend. The Dutch ace won last year but won’t be taking anything for granted after his car packed up with the 2021 race at his mercy five laps from the chequered flag.
Carlos concedes? The depth of Ferrari’s fall laid bare
— Callum Dick
Ferrari star Carlos Sainz concedes fellow Spaniard Fernando Alonso is more likely to take a race win this season as the Scuderia struggles with a crisis of confidence on all fronts.
Just days after Red Bull development boss Helmut Marko questioned how Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur remained so positive despite the Scuderia’s poor start to the season, Sainz betrayed a less optimistic outlook ahead of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix this weekend.
“Well, I think he’s (Alonso) a little bit closer than me (to a race win),” Sainz told Spanish news channel Antena 3.
“He’s been finishing third in races, I’ve been finishing in fourth and fifth.”
At this point last season, Ferrari was riding high atop the constructors’ standings and Sainz’s teammate, Charles Leclerc, was the early drivers’ championship leader.
But after a horror show at Albert Park, which included a lap one DNF for Leclerc and post-race penalty for Sainz that knocked him out of the top 10, Ferrari finds itself down in fourth – almost 100 points back from Red Bull.
But even more concerning is the shock form of Aston Martin, which has arrived as a genuine challenger to established top three contenders Mercedes and Ferrari.
With two-time world champion Alonso at the helm, the Green Machine has stood on the third step of the podium in each race this season and sits second in the standings.
Twelve months ago Ferrari was the team to beat heading to Baku. Now it looks to have the fourth-best car on the grid – an almost unimaginable fall from grace.
“It looks like Aston Martin is a little superior to us, especially in terms of race pace,” Sainz conceded.
“I would say that he’s (Alonso) a little closer to that No. 22 (race victory). If I were at home watching F1, like everyone else, I would be rooting for him.
“For me, the second victory, I think it can happen at any time, but it’s true that we need a little bit more.
“We need Red Bull to fail, and we need to step forward and beat Aston Martin and Mercedes.”
Double jeopardy: F1’s fresh format explained
Formula One approved a shake-up to the sprint format on Tuesday in time for this weekend’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
In Baku, which stages the first of this season’s six sprints, the 100-kilometre dash becomes a stand-alone event on the Saturday of race weekends.
A shortened qualifying version will be held in the morning of the approximately 30 minute race to define the starting order for the sprint first introduced in 2021.
Qualifying for Sunday’s Grand Prix will now he held on Friday, the traditional three-session qualifying preceded by a first practice session.
The shake-up was given the green light by the teams at the Australian Grand Prix at the start of the month, with the changes rubber stamped by the FIA’s F1 commission on Tuesday.
Up to now, the three sprints held in 2021 and last year have shaped the grid for Sunday’s main event.
Teams and Formula One believe the revised race weekend will now give Saturday’s action added excitement to fans with the doing away of the often less than enthralling second practice session.
Saturday’s qualifying will be known as ‘the Sprint shootout’ with the first qualifying session or Q1 running for 12 minutes, Q2 for 10 minutes and Q3 for eight minutes.
F1 hopes that with its new stand-alone status drivers will have an added incentive ‘to go for it’, knowing any incidents will not have a bearing on where they start in the Grand Prix.
The Sprint points system remains unchanged, with eight going to the winner down to one for eighth place, meaning a maximum points haul of 34 on offer to a driver winning the sprint, grand prix, and posting the fastest lap.
Announcing the changes the FI Commission hoped the new format would deliver “more ‘jeopardy’ through a reduction in practice time and providing a greater incentive to drivers to race hard on Saturday”.
After Baku there are sprints scheduled for Austria (Red Bull Ring), Belgium (Spa-Francorchamps), Qatar (Lusail Circuit), the United States (Circuit of The Americas) and Brazil (Interlagos).
Sprint Shootout is here! ðŸ¿
— Formula 1 (@F1) April 25, 2023
Imagine qualifying, but even quicker. Every lap counts as Saturday's Sprint Shootout sets the grid for the #F1Sprint
Leaving Sunday's Grand Prix unaffected 🔒 pic.twitter.com/oTVrJIuLvl
NORRIS, PIASTRI SET FOR MYSTERY BOOST IN BAKU
- Callum Dick
Following a season-best showing Down Under, McLaren star Lando Norris says the team continues to “take it one race at a time” as it battles to return to relevancy near the top of the Formula One grid.
After enduring a horror start to the year in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, Norris and rookie Aussie teammate Oscar Piastri both put their papayas into the points at Albert Park – albeit in a race ravaged by red flags.
“There has been plenty of ups and downs,” Norris said in an interview on the McLaren website.
“We’ve learned that there are some good parts and some strengths to this car that we want to keep, but there are clearly some weaker areas that we are working on and focused on improving.
“On the whole, the team are doing a very good job, we just need to keep up the level of effort we are putting in.”
McLaren is one of a handful of teams poised to introduce upgrades in Baku this weekend.
In a pre-race interview in Melbourne, team principal Andrea Stella said the team expected its upgrade package to make the MCL60 lap a few tenths faster.
It’s the first of three anticipated upgrades which the McLaren hopes will help return the team to podium contention by season’s end – though Norris maintains there is plenty of work to be done before then.
“There will be some races where we are performing well and some where we aren’t as strong, so we’ll just take it one race at a time,” he said.
“We just want to maximise every weekend, so we’re not looking at the bigger picture just yet, but I don’t think we need to do too much differently.
“When we are struggling a bit more with pace that is when we have to step up and do an even better job.
“We’re all really motivated because we know we have some good things in the pipeline for further down the line. Everyone is exciting and working hard, and we will keep that up.”
Straight line speed has been a major area of concern for McLaren – as has been its seemingly marginal boost from DRS in comparison to other teams.
Exactly what the Baku upgrade will be remains to be seen, however any boost to the MCL60’s pace will be a welcome one for Norris and Piastri.
Despite driving a car clearly not capable of contending for podiums at the minute, both drivers appear hungry to improve as evidenced by their stopover at Imola for testing in the MCL35M earlier this month.
Originally published as F1 Azerbaijan Grand Prix 2023: All the latest news ahead of race in Baku
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