Charles Leclerc, Oscar Piastri and George Russell make up the podium at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix on Sept. 15. With Piastri’s win, McLaren are now leading the constructors. (Photo by LAT Images | Mercedes AMG)
Baku, Azerbaijan – McLaren’s Oscar Piastri took home the win at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix on Sept. 15, and Lando Norris, who started in 15th, just missed the podium after finishing in fourth at the 6.003 km Baku City Circuit.
The combined 38 points between the two McLaren drivers put them 20 points ahead of previous constructor’s leader, Red Bull Racing. Red Bull started the season off with Max Verstappen winning seven out of the first 10 races, and Sergio Perez helped propel the team up in the constructors.
However, this is a team sport and it takes more than one driver to do well in order to win the constructor’s trophy. Perez has only finished on the podium four times this season, which is different than last season’s Red Bull dominance.
Perez was looking at potentially finishing in the podium spots and was battling with Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc during the last few laps of the race. However, on lap 50/51, Sainz and Perez collided: ending both of their races.
Due to the crash between Sainz and Perez, a virtual safety car was called, solidifying Piastri’s lead.
Piastri started in second behind Leclerc, who won in Monza the previous week, and after working on closing the gap to the pole sitter, Piastri was able to hit the brakes later than Leclerc into Turn 1 on Lap 20.
The Australian had the help of DRS through the front stretch where he was able to catch Leclerc and solidify his overtake coming out of the first turn.
“Yeah, I mean, I tried at the start of the race to get in front, but once I dropped out of DRS, I just didn’t have the pace, and after the stop, I saw we were pretty close again, and I felt like we had a little bit of extra grip, and I had to go for it because I knew that if I didn’t get past, I was, didn’t get past the start of the stint, I was never going to get past, so I went for a pretty big lunge, but managed to pull it off, and then hung on for dear life for the next 35 laps,” said Piastri in a track interview with Guenther Steiner.
Piastri pitted on Lap 16 while Leclerc pitted on Lap 17, giving Piastri the benefit of warmer tires. Leclerc was aware of this and he said in the post-race press conference, because of the tires, and being able to see Piastri in his mirrors, he was not caught off-guard by the overtake.
“I just thought it wasn’t that much of a big deal if he would overtake me at that point of the race because the race was still long and the DRS would help me to stay within a second of him and then once my tyres will be in temperature I could overtake him again,” said Leclerc in a post-race press conference. “But as I said, that was a misjudgement from my side.”
Charles Leclerc exits his car after finishing second behind Oscar Piastri in Azerbaijan. Leclerc began on pole, but lost the lead to Piastri on Lap 20. (Photo by Scuderia Ferrari)
Leclerc finished ahead of Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS’ George Russell who was hovering in fifth when the collision between Sainz and Perez happened.
“Yeah, we thought we could probably fight for P5. But how the race unfolded, we definitely didn’t expect,” Russell said in a post-race press conference. “We were really slow in the first stint. I was about one and a half seconds slower than Charles most laps. And it all felt pretty disastrous.”
Russell went on to talk about how they began to make up pace during the last 20 laps, and they were not sure as to why that is. Two new drivers were able to score points in Baku as well. Oliver Bearman jumped in the Haas for Kevin Magnussen, who is out on a race ban for having too many penalty points in one season, and Franco Colapinto, who replaced Logan Sargeant at Williams, was able to score his first F1 points as well.
Formula 1 heads to the Marina Bay Street Circuit for the Singapore Grand Prix on Sept. 20-22.
| Finish | Start | Car No. | Driver | Team | Gap (in seconds) | Points |
| 1 | 2 | 81 | Oscar Piastri | McLaren Mercedes | Leader | 25 |
| 2 | 1 | 16 | Charles Leclerc | Ferrari | 10.910 | 18 |
| 3 | 5 | 63 | George Russell | Mercedes | 31.328 | 15 |
| 4 | 15 | 4 | Lando Norris | McLaren Mercedes | 36.143 | 13 |
| 5 | 6 | 1 | Max Verstappen | Red Bull Racing Honda RBPT | 77.098 | 10 |
| 6 | 7 | 14 | Fernando Alonso | Aston Martin Aramco Mercedes | 85.468 | 8 |
| 7 | 9 | 23 | Alexander Albon | Williams Mercedes | 87.396 | 6 |
| 8 | 8 | 43 | Franco Colapinto | Williams Mercedes | 89.541 | 4 |
| 9 | 19 | 44 | Lewis Hamilton | Mercedes | 92.401 | 2 |
| 10 | 10 | 50 | Oliver Bearman | Haas Ferrari | 93.127 | 1 |
| 11 | 12 | 27 | Nico Hulkenberg | Haas Ferrari | 93.465 | 0 |
| 12 | 18 | 10 | Pierre Gasly | Alpine Renault | 117.189 | 0 |
| 13 | 14 | 3 | Daniel Ricciardo | RB Honda RBPT | 146.907 | 0 |
| 14 | 17 | 24 | Zhou Guanyu | Kick Sauber Ferrari | 148.841 | 0 |
| 15 | 20 | 31 | Esteban Ocon | Alpine Renault | 1 lap | 0 |
| 16 | 16 | 77 | Valtteri Bottas | Kick Sauber Ferrari | 1 lap | 0 |
| 17 | 4 | 11 | Sergio Perez | Red Bull Racing Honda RBPT | DNF | 0 |
| 18 | 3 | 55 | Carlos Sainz | Ferrari | DNF | 0 |
| 19 | 13 | 18 | Lance Stroll | Aston Martin Aramco Mercedes | DNF | 0 |
| 20 | 11 | 22 | Yuki Tsunoda | RB Honda RBPT | DNF | 0 |
