Formula 1 Winners & Losers: Azerbaijan Grand Prix
Photo from F1i.com
Is it too soon to say that the championship is over?
Probably, but I’m sure starting to lean that way.
Here are this weeks winners and losers from the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
Losers
5. Zhou Guanyu
Zhou was so quick this weekend.
Even if he got points at Bahrain in his first ever race, this felt like a coming out party considering his pace compared to his teammate.
And unfortunately, to no fault of his own, a mechanical issue forced him to retire the car and end up with no points.
He was obviously frustrated, but he should take some pride in how quick he really was.
4. Kevin Magnussen
Another solid race, another Ferrari power unit failure.
But it was probably just Kevin and Zhou, right?
3. Lance Stroll
Lance was just sort of awful this weekend.
Crashes in qualifying, no pace in the race and all while his teammate kept it in the points despite his mistakes as well.
Just a bad bad weekend.
2. Carlos Sainz
Oh I thought we were done with the Ferrari power unit failures.
I guess not.
Well, another good result for Carlos goes up in smoke with a mechanical issue, as his luck just continues to be terrible.
But THAT has to be it, right?
1. Charles Leclerc
Ohhhhh no……..
It’s another Ferrari power unit.
It’s another failure.
But this time, it’s the championship contender who has lost his race due to a mechanical failure for the 2nd time in 3 races.
That’s four straight pole positions for Charles Leclerc, and he has not won any of those races.
Some of that have been his mistakes, but the engine issues are not helping at all.
He now has a lot of ground to make up on Max Verstappen, and Ferrari has a lot of ground to make up on Red Bull.
Winners
5. Pierre Gasly
Gasly got a big indication of his future when Checo Perez signed a two year extension at Red Bull after the Monaco Grand Prix.
He now knows he is not in Red Bull’s future, so he no longer needs to spend time slumming it at the junior team. Now comes the audition stage for other teams.
And it got off to a great start, with a very mature and controlled one stop strategy on route to a 5th place finish, his first points since Australia.
4. Sebastian Vettel
As mentioned with Stroll above, Vettel made a mistake early in the race and made up for it.
A 6th place finish for Vettel in a car that’s not exactly terrific will be a great look for Aston Martin considering their other driver, uh, didn’t do that.
3. George Russell
Another race, another drive with no drama from George Russell.
He said it best in his post race interview. “You have to be there at the end.”
George has been there at the end of every race so far, as he remains the only driver this year to finish in the top 5 of every single race, this time finishing 3rd.
2. Lewis Hamilton
Lewis finished behind his teammate in 4th, but he had to do a lot more overtaking due to the first round of virtual safety car pit stops.
The drive to get to 4th, alongside his horrible back pain he had to deal with where he had difficulties even getting out of the car, and that’s a great drive.
But it does make me wonder if he is considering his future in Formula 1.
He has nothing left to prove and the constant porpoising his car has to deal with is making it miserable to drive.
If Mercedes want to get him his record 8th world championship, they are running out of time.
But the greatest of all time still has that talent in him.
1. Max Verstappen
There’s winning races, and then there’s WINNING races.
Verstappen qualified 3rd behind Charles Leclerc and his teammate Checo Perez.
He stayed in 3rd for a good majority of the race.
And then around lap 10, he turned it up to 11.
Not only did he get by Perez, but he went on to beat his teammate who finished in 2nd by 21 seconds.
He basically had an entire pit stop gap between them by the end.
You can wonder if he deserved to win in Spain after Leclerc’s failure. You can wonder if Checo deserved to win at Monaco after a poor strategy by Ferrari.
You can’t wonder this time. Verstappen deserved this and then some.
