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While it doesn’t have over half a century of history on the Formula 1 calendar like Monaco does, you could argue that, in its own way, the Azerbaijan Grand Prix left just as big a hole as any other absent race did last year when the pandemic prevented F1 from visiting Baku.
The event began on rocky ground with a fairly lacklustre opening race in 2016, but it soon began to earn a reputation for providing unpredictable results and high drama.
The street circuit’s absence from the calendar last year was felt by many but now F1 returns for the sixth round of its 2021 season and the fifth-ever F1 race in Baku this weekend.
Our writers were tasked with picking out some of their favourite Baku moments, from standout drives to a controversial clash between two title rivals.
An unlikely winner
Daniel Ricciardo’s 2017 victory just encapsulated the random wildness the Baku circuit tends to produce. He won having started in 10th place following a crash in Q3. He then had to make a pitstop just six laps in, to clear debris from his brake ducts.
It didn’t seem at that stage like the build-up to a grand prix victory, but things were about to get wild, in typical Baku style.
There were three safety cars and a red flag. Ricciardo’s early stop put him on a different tyre strategy to the rest and when the first safety car came out and the others swapped to the slower tyre, he was able to swap to the faster one.
At each restart, he was at his late-braking, outrageous passing best. On the restart behind the safety car after the red flag (to clear debris) he passed both Williams cars of Felipe Massa and Lance Stroll in one move (having been heard telling Dr Helmut Marko on the grid that’s what he was going to do) and this put him in third place.
Only Sebastian Vettel and Lewis Hamilton lay ahead of him at this point. Vettel would later be brought in for a penalty for his road rage incident behind Hamilton during one of the safety cars. Hamilton would later be forced to pit to have a detached cockpit surround fixed. And just like that, Ricciardo stole a victory out of thin air.
– Mark Hughes
Title rivals come to blows
Surely Baku’s most chaotic and iconic moment came when title rivals Sebastian Vettel and Lewis Hamilton collided under the safety car during the 2017 Azerbaijan GP.
Vettel felt Hamilton brake-checked him out of the Turn 15 left-hander but the stewards slapped the four-time champion with a 10-second stop-go penalty for dangerous driving believing he’d deliberately driven his Ferrari into Hamilton’s Mercedes. Vettel served his penalty but a loose headrest on Hamilton’s car meant Vettel actually finished ahead of his title rival in fourth place.
“He was obviously sleeping and driving alongside and deliberately driving into a driver and coming away scot-free is a disgrace,” a furious Hamilton said after the race.
Tensions can run high when the championship battle heats up 👀🔥#AzerbaijanGP 🇦🇿 #F1 pic.twitter.com/KHMHQBI2Xu
— Formula 1 (@F1) June 1, 2021
Vettel – at that point with more titles to his name than Hamilton – faced a post-race investigation that could have resulted in a race ban. Instead, he admitted fault, apologised and escaped with three penalty points – and was banned by FIA president Jean Todt from endorsing any road safety activities.
Ironically it made little difference to the championship fight despite the huge spectacle, and we didn’t see Hamilton and Vettel collide again until four months later at the Mexican Grand Prix – at which point the close title fight had long swung overwhelmingly in favour of Hamilton who recovered from the collision to finish in ninth to take the title with two races to spare.
It remains to be seen whether Hamilton and his new title rival Max Verstappen can maintain their impressive 2021 run of battling for the lead without colliding – if they can manage that at Baku, they can manage it anywhere.
– Josh Suttill
The potential for a stunning ignition
When Baku first appeared on the F1 calendar in 2016 it was not an instant hit. Actually, this race feels about as likely to produce a race of chaos as it is quite a straightforward affair. But it’s that potential for the race to swing spectacularly from ‘boring’ to chaotic, with a sudden ignition, that makes it such a great track for a grand prix.
There’s no better example of that than the 2018 race, which might offer a template for how this year’s edition will go – and could spark into something dramatic at any moment.
Vettel and Hamilton were closely matched and fine details were making the difference in a tense but ultimately straightforward race, with Vettel edging ever clearer especially once Hamilton had locked up one too many times.
But then the Red Bulls of Ricciardo and Verstappen collided spectacularly and triggered a safety car period.
That launched Valtteri Bottas into a surprise lead as his unspectacular but lengthy first stint let him pit during the caution, allowing him to stop and rejoin ahead of Vettel. At the restart, Vettel launched a move into Turn 1 but ran wide and dropped to fourth place.
Suddenly the Mercedes drivers ran first and second but Bottas was robbed of victory by a puncture, which allowed Hamilton to win after all. Kimi Raikkonen was second for Ferrari while Sergio Perez scooped the final place on the podium with a late pass on Vettel.
Within that race, there was also a first-lap shunt between Raikkonen’s Ferrari and Esteban Ocon’s Force India, and during the Red Bull-enforced safety car period Romain Grosjean crashed into the wall warming up his tyres.
Baku’s simply a race that can turn from straightforward to complicated very, very quickly.
– Scott Mitchell
An Alonso masterclass
Baku is a circuit that occasionally lets drivers do something remarkable, which Fernando Alonso certainly did with his drive to seventh in a damaged McLaren in 2018.
Alonso started 12th having lapped almost half-a-second faster than team-mate Stoffel Vandoorne in qualifying, but his race looked over on the run to Turn 3 when Williams driver Sergey Sirotkin was squeezed into him by Nico Hulkenberg’s Renault.
As well as a right-front puncture, Alonso suffered damage to the tea-tray, floor and diffuser. After limping back to the pits, he couldn’t even make it to his pit box without glancing the pitwall thanks to steering struggles.
With his car lacking a good half-second of pace, as well as suffering from poor balance, Alonso restarted down in 12th pace. He passed six drivers – including Williams driver Stroll on the last lap – with the remaining four positions gained thanks to retirements.
Alonso characterised it as one of his best races, and while he had a tendency to talk up his performances in a difficult McLaren he had good reason to do so. This was Alonso at his hustling, determined best, producing a result when all seemed lost.
It’s just a shame that the circumstances meant his outstanding performance was rewarded with a minor points finish rather than something more fitting.
– Edd Straw
The Formula 2 races are always bonkers
We’d be doing Formula 2 a major disservice if we didn’t mention it while discussing Baku’s most bonkers moments because there isn’t a motorsport combination less chaotic than F2 and Baku.
In 2016, while the first-ever F1 race in Baku was meandering along, the F2 (then GP2) paddock was busy either repairing damaged cars, in a complete state of shock or soaking in a zero-to-hero victory.
That weekend belonged to Antonio Giovinazzi, who put on the best performance of his racing career to date to emerge from two extremely hard-thought races with a double win – despite it marking only his third weekend in the series, the first two of which had failed to yield a single point.
Just 10 of the 22 starters made the chequered flag in the feature race while in the sprint race, race leader Nobuharu Matsushita’s management of the safety car restarts was so woefully dangerous he was banned from competing at the next round at the Red Bull Ring.
Charles Leclerc almost repeated Giovinazzi’s double victory in his rookie season one year later. He’d lost his father a few days before the weekend and took an emotional victory in the feature race and he crossed the line in first place in the sprint race only to lose that victory due to a yellow flag infringement.
Alex Albon duelled with George Russell for the feature race win in 2018, and once again safety car restart chaos played its part as the majority of the top 10 failed to get it slowed down in time for Turn 1 and went skating off the road. Albon emerged victorious while Jack Aitken charged from the pitlane to finish in second.
Russell then went and won the sprint race from 12th on the grid – when issues with the clutch on the new F2 car meant the race starts were often chaotic (see below).
Russell's rocket start 🚀@GeorgeRussell63 started the 2018 Sprint Race in P12, but after this start (and some moves) he ended up winning!#AzerbaijanGP 🇦🇿 #RoadToF1 pic.twitter.com/SZhoOiqaQL
— Formula 2 (@Formula2) June 1, 2021
Aitken claimed victory in F2’s last feature race in Baku from P8 on the grid in 2019, a race that featured another huge safety car restart pile-up, this time before the start/finish line.
We may have just been to Monaco, but it’s an even greater lottery in Baku sometimes especially when F2 or title rivals are involved.
– JS
