Mercedes made it 4-0 to the Brackley boys as it finished the flyaway phase of the season with another lockout of the top spots. Motorsport Week takes a look at the talking points from the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
Mercedes the maestros once more
Perhaps once Mercedes has racked up its 15th win of the season it might become clear that it actually has the fastest car. Right now its overall package – or at least, what teams can extract from their packages – is the pacesetter in Formula 1. Ferrari has admitted such. To look at the results provokes thoughts of Mercedes’ 2014-16 dominance but that is far from the case. It is merely that Mercedes is currently a team operating at the top of its game – perhaps the best in Formula 1 history – in turn made to look even better by a floundering Ferrari. Mercedes knows how to build up its weekend and remain calm under pressure. Witness, for example, its inspired tactics to dummy Ferrari in Q3 by sending out its drivers only to instruct them to carry out practice starts. All of a sudden Sebastian Vettel had no tow. Clever. If it had backfired they would have appeared foolish, but the fact that Mercedes pulls off its bold ideas merely underlines its strength. Hamilton and Bottas were both respectful on the opening lap (Hamilton admitting he was a bit too passive) and thereafter executed the perfect strategy: a dull one-stopper in flying formation. It makes it 2-2 between Bottas and Hamilton; Bottas also could have led the championship at this stage last year – without his Baku puncture – so it would still be remiss to make any conclusions at this moment, given that 0.059s in qualifying effectively decided the race. But, given Ferrari’s malaise, observers can only hope that Bottas maintains this momentum – rather than drop off as in 2018 – if there is to be a tasty fight between the Silver Arrows. Mercedes is almost employing rope-a-dope tactics in 2019 and it cannot be faulted for being, so far, perfect.
Stupid mistake
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The highly self-critical Charles Leclerc nobly accepted responsibility for his costly Q2 crash in a very public manner and the youngster was correct to hold up his hands and admit his mistake. But it was an error facilitated by another questionable Ferrari decision. Small margins can spiral and add up. How the top teams used their tyres through the weekend proved crucial. Ferrari sent out its drivers on the harder Medium compound in Q2, thus upsetting their rhythm at a venue where confidence and flow is more important than at most circuits. The situation was also accentuated by Baku’s natural low-grip nature, the buildings often leaving the track surface in the shade, and the very scheduling of the session in the early evening, with conditions rapidly cooling in the April climate. The 30-minute delay after Robert Kubica's crash had also cooled the circuit further. At some events discarding the Soft tyres to run a Medium/Hard strategy is favoured by the top teams but there was widespread bemusement at Ferrari’s approach given Baku’s characteristics, especially so given the difference in grip between the compounds. Would Leclerc have won on a Medium/Soft strategy had he started from pole, or at least the top two rows? Possibly. We’ll never know. But the decision to adopt such an approach in Q2 was an unnecessary risk – even Sebastian Vettel almost came to grief through Turn 8. Leclerc may well have won on a simple Soft/Medium strategy, given how Vettel was able to give chase to Mercedes for much of the race despite a continual ill-feeling with the SF90 that, according to Leclerc, is not impacting the younger Ferrari driver. “I’m convinced we’ve been, partly this weekend, looking very strong but overall not strong enough,” Vettel said. “So, it seems that for us it’s more of a conscious effort to get the car in the right window, whereas maybe for them [Mercedes] it seems to click a little bit easier. Especially a place like around here, you need the confidence in the car. I’m not yet there. I can feel that I’m not driving at my best because simply the car does not answer or does not respond the way I like. And then I think it’s unnatural.” Vettel compared Ferrari’s situation to solving a Rubik’s Cube. Given how many people struggle with the colour coordinated puzzle that was perhaps not the best analogy. Ferrari repeatedly maintains it has a strong package that it is merely unable to sufficiently unlock – perhaps similar to Mercedes’ ‘diva’ in 2017. But unless it seriously begins unwrapping the car in the coming races then any hope of a title fight will be but a pipe dream.
Ricciardo, Renault, desperately dire
Perhaps reality is now setting in. The idea of Daniel Ricciardo joining an on-the-up Renault team and driving them towards some form of long-term glory appears more and more like a fantasy. Renault has seriously underdelivered in 2019 and, aside from Williams, is Formula 1’s biggest disappointment so far. It has lacked reliability and performance and, given McLaren’s relative year-on-year gains, it only accentuates Renault’s plight. Ricciardo’s late lunges became a symbol of his Red Bull tenure but his clumsy lock-up epitomised where he and Renault are currently lacking. Whereas last year he’d lick the stamp and send it, this season he missed the delivery date and then reversed back into the post box. Ricciardo – and his victim Dany Kvyat – were both mature enough to shake hands and brush it aside, but the bigger picture for Renault is its lack of competitiveness. Ricciardo was scrapping at the fringes of the top 10 all weekend. Nico Hulkenberg, who has a dire record in Baku anyway, was practically a backmarker, finishing almost half a minute behind the struggling Haas team. “I had no response or anything to offer,” said a dispirited Hulkenberg. “I felt like I was driving as best as I could but couldn’t extract the maximum from the car. We’ve consistently struggled.” For a manufacturer determined to prove its worth as a title contender this was a dismal display. One or two sources pre-season had Renault down as a scarcely-believable ninth-best, but on evidence from Baku that is close to the territory in which it competed.
Williams drained
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This has not been a good season for Williams and in Azerbaijan it took on an almost comedic value – if the outcomes weren’t so disheartening, that is. George Russell cancelled some Thursday commitments in the wake of picking up a “horrific” viral infection post-China that left him bedbound for days and unable to train as he grappled with a fever. He maintained he felt much better come the weekend but his face suggested a different story. On just his second lap in FP1 Russell struck a drain cover that had worked its way loose on account of a damaged clip on the underside of the cover. Detecting such a failure was nigh on impossible (it was not a case of weld done Baku) while in the cockpit Russell had no chance of avoiding it. Russell’s chassis sustained substantial damage and a change was required – leaving him out of FP2 – while the remainder of FP1 was cancelled while extensive checks were carried out on the other drain covers on the track. In an intriguing twist, speculation mounted that the new chassis given to Russell was the one that was being set aside longer-term for Kubica, who remains unhappy at the differences between ostensibly identical FW42s. Williams received a bouquet of flowers from the Baku City Circuit as way of an apology (a kind gesture) but the team is likely to seek compensation for the damage – and understandably so. Now it merely depends on who is responsible. It took Haas 18 months to sort its Sepang 2017 drain incident. As if to compound matters Kubica then went and shunted heavily at Turn 8, and the dispirited Pole appeared almost lost as to how he had made such a mistake. He maintains that the lacklustre FW42 is masking his potential and, while it is difficult to disagree with such a stance, Russell has been ahead more often that not and has cut more of a team player image during the struggles. Part of that is likely down to Russell’s youth and knowledge that he has a long-term career (backed by Mercedes) while for Kubica – who has been to hell and back – this may be his one chance to prove to his doubters (and more likely himself) that he remains a top-level Formula 1 driver. You can forgive him for being a little on the surly side. The bigger sadness for the championship is that the Kubica comeback story will be full of back-row starts, blue flags and misery, and that his true competitiveness is unlikely to ever be fully established. At least he kept it out of the barriers in race trim, even if he came perilously close to an embarrassing shunt at Turn 2 straight after his pit lane start.
Tired of tyres
Haas started the season as Formula 1’s midfield leader but that has proved the high point. Three straight 13ths have followed for Kevin Magnussen – there’s definitely a joke about the number 13 and a lack of fortune in there somewhere – while Romain Grosjean is yet to score. Magnussen was again despondent post-race while boss Guenther Steiner labelled its form as “very disappointing.” Haas’ pace has historically fluctuated depending on its use of tyres and that has been its bugbear through the last three grands prix. “Other people can get it to work so we need to get it to work,” said Steiner. “There’s no point saying ‘Oh, it’s not working’. Nine teams can get it to work. Who’s better? Who’s worse? We are absolutely the worst one to get it to work. I’m very conscious about that one. It’s [a] very serious [problem], it’s disappointing because you go slower. That’s what it is. We know the cause now, we just need to find out how to fix it. We can talk for half an hour about it, we know what it is, we just need to fix it. If you ask me ‘what is (the fix)?’ I don’t know, otherwise I would fix it.” Steiner went on to add: “We were fast at the test, we were fast in Australia, we qualify… But at the moment we seem not to get it right. Everyone has got issues with the tyres, you can see it. You go into the graining phase, and then when we go into the graining phase we cannot get out of it anymore because our tyre then gets too cold and then we are done. Then we slide around. We’ve got four or five laps, we go fast, then the graining starts to go and then other people recover after the graining but we don’t, because our temperature is too low and we just cannot get it to work anymore once the graining clears.” At the moment it is costing Haas dearly in the Constructors’ battle.
Any other business
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Pierre Gasly has endured a fraught start to his Red Bull career and on-paper it was another lacklustre weekend: a pit lane start caused by missing the weighbridge followed by exclusion from qualifying for a fuel flow irregularity that was then compounded by a driveshaft failure. Team boss Christian Horner was nonetheless encouraged by Gasly’s pure pace through the weekend and asserted he is now over the worst of his problems. Sergio Perez had another Sergio Perez Baku race as he displayed strong pace throughout – team-mate Lance Stroll had a strong recovery drive but needs to start qualifying higher if Racing Point is to extract its potential. McLaren scored its first double points in a year. Carlos Sainz Jr. passed Lando Norris, Norris used the undercut to jump ahead, then opted – along with the team – to make a second stop under the VSC. It didn’t change McLaren’s points haul, aside from Sainz Jr. moving back ahead of Norris. Kimi Raikkonen kept up his and Alfa Romeo’s record of scoring in each 2019 race though did so from the pit lane after the front wing flexed more than the permitted 5mm post-qualifying. Raikkonen revealed that a problem detected in China gave no performance gain but that the part in question could not be rectified in time for Azerbaijan. Elsewhere, Netflix has been filming in the paddock since pre-season testing and prior to Azerbaijan the contract to produce a second season of its Formula 1 documentary was formally confirmed, as expected. It is not yet known who will participate but Mercedes and Ferrari are thought unlikely to be present, as per season one.
2020 vision
It’s only the end of April but already talk is focusing on the composition of next year’s calendar. It is understood that the return of the Dutch Grand Prix – at Zandvoort – is highly likely, joining the already-confirmed new-for-2020 Vietnam race in Ha Noi. Vietnam is set to run back-to-back with China. This could facilitate a return to a June spot for Baku, which wants to move its race from April to mid-season, though this will also be dependent on its Euro 2020 hosting duties. The governor of the state of Rio de Janeiro went public with its desire to prise the Brazilian Grand Prix away from Sao Paulo’s Interlagos venue, revealing talks have been held with Liberty Media. But any project currently remains in its early infancy and may never happen. Interlagos is Formula 1’s least lucrative flyaway event owing to pre-Liberty contracts while security remains a concern every year. Formula 1’s upcoming Spanish Grand Prix could still yet be the last in Barcelona. There is no word yet on its future, its city council is unwilling to provide as much funding (though elections in late May could change this), the Spain/Catalonia arguments are ongoing, while the country is a less attractive market for a sport trying to reach new areas, particularly in the wake of Fernando Alonso’s retirement. Zandvoort would slot nicely into Spain’s current date. There’s no concrete developments yet on other 2019 events – Germany, Italy and Mexico – that are without 2020 deals. Proposals for a race in the Biscayne Boulevard area of Miami, which was originally slated for 2019 but later postponed, is officially off. A race in the district of the Hard Rock Stadium has been mooted but nothing is likely to happen in a hurry.
Baku
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Baku is a little peculiar – and that’s not meant as a criticism. Parts of it feel Parisian, others as if inspired by Budapest, while it mixes opulence with poverty, sometimes on the same street. It is trying to align itself with Western Europe while at the same time having that unavoidable ex-Soviet feel. It is a city that is always looking to the future – using the method of bringing in tourism via sport, based on oil riches – but unavoidably proud of its past, with Old Baku a beautifully cobbled area surrounded by the current track. It is a well-liked circuit, even if it did not deliver an enthralling 2019 race, while the city itself is admired by the paddock (or at least those who ventured beyond the plush circuit-side hotels). One amusing aspect is that the street circuit must be guarded and thus an army (perhaps literally) of men – and it is all men – line the circuit perimeter throughout the weekend. Their dress code? Camouflage gear and a hi-vis jacket. It is also home to unpredictable weather and has a reputation as a windy city. You can go from baking hot to feeling frozen in strong gales just by walking around a street corner. More than a few journalists regretted a lack of thermals on Saturday evening after the delayed qualifying session caused media duties to be postponed, with several in the TV pen requesting patio heaters for future years! Baku is also tricky to reach from Western Europe and that meant some differing methods of travelling. Between a group of eight journalists we worked out that we had – or would – have stops in either Ukraine, Turkey, Germany, Hungary, Qatar and Russia. No sympathy required given that travelling is part of the fun, but it just shows how Formula 1 truly is an international game, and provides a competition to see who best can marry cost with convenience!
