F1. Azerbaijan 2024 Review

By Gavin Huet, Chelsea Wintle and Aiden McLaughlin

Driver of the day

Gavin – Oscar Piastri. A brilliant move to take the lead and then thirty odd laps of keeping the Ferrari of Charles Leclerc behind him gave him his second race win. He never put a foot wrong even with the McLaren coming close to the walls of the street circuit many times, but crucially he kept his cool and dominated the race whilst preserving his tyres out front in the free air. With only a season and a half to his name the potential for the Australian looks endless. A future Champion for sure.

Chelsea – Oscar Piastri. For the majority of the race there were only two contenders for the win – Piastri and Charles Leclerc, the latter with the early lead. Yet somehow Piastri’s victory seemed inevitable from the start, with dominant pace, an almost flawless drive, and a masterful overtake. Leclerc’s stutter late in the race saw Piastri’s lead increase to over two seconds and Naomi Campbell cast a steely beam upon him as she waved the chequered flag. For man in only his second season of F1, Piastri drove like a veteran.

Aiden – Sometimes it’s hard to believe Oscar Piastri has only been in F1 for about 18 months. His move to overtake Charles Leclerc and take the lead was as unexpected as it was brave (see below), but once he made it stick, that was just the beginning. With DRS in Leclerc’s favour, every lap meant defence was imperative for the Australian, and jeez did he defend well. At times he also was able to slow up (ever so slightly – this is F1 after all) to let Sergio Perez close the gap on Leclerc to give him something else to think about. An honourable mention for his McLaren teammate Lando Norris who drove a heck of a race to move up from P15 to P4. What a day for McLaren as they overhauled Red Bull at the top of the constructor’s standings.

 

Moment of the weekend

Gavin – The overtake by Oscar on Charles to take the lead. I am not sure Charles considered an overtake was possible but Oscar lined it up from way back and committed everything to it. If he got it wrong it would probably be the end of the race for him, but he did not get it wrong and it allowed him to win the race. Talk about seizing opportunities.

Chelsea – Sure, the late race clash between Perez and Sainz was fun, but what about that comical Williams blunder in qualifying? Alex Albon, having exited the bits, slowly pulled over with a conspicuous bright yellow contraption still attached to his vehicle. That contraption was a fan designed to cool the engine, and is brightly coloured exactly so this sort of thing does not happen. Will someone get fired? Probably not, but I imagine a lot of ribbing and someone shouting a round of post-race beers in the Williams garage.

Aiden – Piastri’s winning move on lap 20 shows just why he is a potential world champion of the future.

“I saw half an opportunity after the pitstop and knew I had to try and take it. [The timing is] what won me the race. I felt a bit sorry for my race engineer because I basically tried to do that in the first stint and completely cooked my tyres. So, my engineer came on the radio and said, ‘let’s not do that again’, basically. I completely ignored him the next lap and sent it down the inside.”

Hot take of the weekend

Gavin – When Checo Perez is the Red Bull driver on form then you know that you have a problem. The drop off in form for both the team and their number one driver Max Verstappen is astonishing. At the beginning of the season no one would have thought this possible, they looked dominant and more titles were a formality. Now we have McLaren leading the Constructors with the possibility that Red Bull will end third behind them and Ferrari. Formula 1 is back to its entertaining best.

Chelsea – Speaking of Williams, what a weekend for them – despite the airbox fan embarrassment, Albon finished the race in seventh, with Franco Colapinto in eighth. It was a very impressive drive from the Argentine in particular, and leaves me a little sad that we won’t see him in 2025, with Carlos Sainz moving in to take the seat next to Albon.

Aiden – The performance of Williams at the weekend shows just why Carlos Sainz is heading there and why there is so much optimism for James Vowles team over the next few years. They have been overwhelming this season so far, and while it might be a stretch to say they can ‘do a McLaren’ over the next year and a bit, I think they’ll be challenging for race wins by the end of 2025.

 

Cold take of the weekend

Gavin – Williams have made a big step forward with Franco Colapinto taking over from Logan Sargaent. With both cars scoring points it begs the question of why team principal James Vowles persisted with Logan as long as he did. Carlos Sainz must be looking at that car and thinking next season may not be as bad as he feared – now if only they could do the basics like remembering to remove the huge yellow fan from the main air duct.

Chelsea – The situation at Red Bull gets more confounding every race. Adrian Newey’s departure coincided with a change in fortune at the team, but the backslide doesn’t seem to be abating. Max Verstappen barely got a mention all weekend, this time being bested by his own teammate Sergio Perez – the same Perez whose dismal performances led to commentators calling for his dismissal. My cold, uneducated, out-of-nowhere take is that Red Bull’s failings have been internally orchestrated by the FIA in order to make the sport more varied and interesting to viewers, in order to rescue its Drive To Survive-led popularity. I don’t know how, and I certainly spend too much time indoors, but there it is.

Aiden – Where is angry Max Verstappen? By his extreme standards, he is really quiet on the team radio, at the press conferences etc. There’s almost an air of defeatism about him at the moment, and with Singapore not usually one of Red Bull’s favourite circuits, I am struggling to see him bounce back this weekend.

Bonus Pictures of the Week

Yes, there is a Red Bull somewhere in the back and side of that Ferrari.

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