2019 Azerbaijan GP Review

Drama, expect the unexpected, that's what we've come to expect from Baku's road circuit... well if you ignore 2016 and the race in 2019.

An expensive weekend in repair bills

But right from FP1, it began when a loose drain cover destroyed Russell's Williams, whose top of the recovery truck hit a bridge, damaging the crane and leeking hydraulic fuel all over the damaged Williams.

Charles Leclerc looked as though pole position was his for the taking, but a lockup caused him to crash into the wall at turn 8, where Kubica had crashed earlier in the session. Several drivers hit the wall, both Toro Rosso's hitting the wall quite hard on exit of turn 15.

Alex Albon was at it again, clouting his rear wheel on the outside barrier of turn 1, lap 1 - their rear suspensions are made of sturdy stuff, sturdier than Raikkonen's front wing that was damaged in the race in China and they didn't check and change it before qualifying with it, subsequently being disqualified.

And then there was Ricciardo reversing into Kvyat, to which Kvyat remarked "for the next race I'll buy him some rear view mirrors".

Who did well?

Right now, Mercedes are bossing it. Four 1-2's to begin the season is a new record and despite the ongoing threat from the Ferrari's, the Mercedes boys and girls are just acing it every weekend, whilst the Ferrari's are making mistakes and left scratching their heads as to what might have been. In qualifying, as they lined up for their final runs, the Mercedes led the pack out, only to park it at the end of the pitlane to ensure they had the best slipstream potential for their qualy runs. Whilst Hamilton set purple times in the final two sectors, he was too compromised in the first sector, and it was Bottas who snatched pole. Bottas converted that to victory on Sunday, sweet redemption for the heartbreak one-year ago.

It was nice to see Perez do well in the Racing Point, once again showing he was ready to pounce for another podium if anything went wrong ahead. He is now joint best of the rest with Kimi Raikkonen, who also had another solid race and added another points finish to his tally.

McLaren also had a better weekend which is good to see. A double points finish for the first time this season, and the team are now in that coveted fourth place in the championship.

Verstappen had another brilliant, albeit lonely weekend, whilst Gasly's pace was around where we would expect it to be.

Who didn't do so well?

Struggling along are Renault, with Hulkenberg in particular who was nowhere this weekend. The engine doesn't seem great and it's not reliable either. Their lofty ambitions of getting closer to the top 3 is not working, on average around 1.7s slower this season so far. There will be tracks better suited to them, but we expect better from them.

We can't mention strugglers without mentioning Williams sadly. With significant damage to both cars, Russell coming in with an illness were all extra challenges they had to face with limited resources, but bringing Kubica out too early was farcical, for which earned them a drive-through penalty. I want something positive to say about Williams, please, at least one good race this season.

What's next?

As we head to Barcelona, the scene of Ferrari's dominance during testing, who would have predicted that they would be winless after 4 races. Ferrari need to start beating Mercedes quickly. Bottas is leading the championship, but it feels like Hamilton is just biding his time. We would all love to see the Red Bull and Honda improve and get in the mix.

The midfield battle is tight and unpredictable, with different tracks suiting different teams. We'd love to say the same about the top 3, or indeed the whole field.

The Pirelli's seem difficult to get in the right window, we say this every year, and it always takes a few races for the teams to get a handle on it. But it's just sad that when teams struggle to get it in the window, like Haas in the race for example, it drops them out of contention when we would rather see a good battle. But it's the same for everyone, and these are the best in the world at racing cars, so perhaps it should be difficult to master everything.

We shouldn't really see any team struggle in Barcelona, with all the testing that took place in pre-season and another test following the next race. It's tended to make the race a bit processional in the past, so let's hope there's a bit of drama, though not of the Grosjean creating a smokescreen in turn 3 variety. Otherwise, this is turning out to be quite a boring season...