Azerbaijan Grand Prix 2019 – Race Report

Fourth double victory in the fourth race of the season for the Mercedes AMG F1 team: Valtteri Bottas wins in Baku ahead of Lewis Hamilton – Sebastian Vettel third. Here is the Baku race report:

Fast Silver Arrows, the Prancing Horses Lame

Bottas strahlt nach seinem fünften Formel-1-Erfolg: „Lewis hat die ganze Zeit Druck gemacht, ich durfte mir keinen Fehler leisten. Aber ich hatte alles unter Kontrolle.“ Wichtiger noch: Vier silberne Doppelsiege in Serie – das ist der beste Saisonstart aller Zeiten! 1992 hatte Williams die ersten drei Rennen dominiert, Mercedes hat diese Bestmarke jetzt geknackt.Sebastian Vettel nachdenklich: „Besonders im ersten Stint habe ich die Reifen nicht zum Arbeiten bekommen. Entsprechend fehlte mir das Vertrauen ins Auto. Wir haben noch viel Arbeit vor uns.“

Mercedes driver Valtteri Bottas underlines his claim to the world title and achieves his second victory of the season in Baku ahead of team-mate Lewis Hamilton. Sebastian (P3) had no chance of victory. His team-mate Charles Leclerc only manages to finish fifth from eighth on the grid after his qualifying crash. Clearly, both Ferraris lacked the speed to seriously endanger Mercedes.

Bottas smiles after his fifth Formula 1 victory: “Lewis put pressure on me the whole time, I was not allowed to make a mistake. But I had everything under control.”

Even more impressive are Mercedes four double victories in a row. This is the best start of a team in F1 history! Williams had dominated the first three races in 1992, Mercedes has finally cracked this record.

The race itself was decided at the start. The two silver arrows go side by side in the first three corners. But Hamilton leaves Botta’s place to survive. The Finn thanks him, and puts some margin between himself and Hamilton. In the meantime, Leclerc rushes through the field with his harder yellow tires from eigth place, overtaking Sergio Perez and Max Verstappen. In lap eleven he settles for fourth behind Vettel.

The German, however, wasn’t able to keep up with the superior speed of his teammate. At that time, he was already seven seconds behind Hamilton. But before Leclerc could overtake Vettel, the team brought Vettel in to pit in lap 13.

Bottas and Hamilton counter the undercut just a lap later and stayed in front. Although their lead melted somewhat, they contiued their lead ahead of Ferrari with the same tire variants.

Leclerc, on a different strategy, lost more and more speed with his degrading tires. At half-time, his lead shrank to three seconds. It was obvious that his strategy didn’t work that Sunday.

In lap 30 Bottas overtakes Leclerc and Hamilton a few laps later. Finally, Vettel overtakes Leclerc. Some more curious events happened with Ricciardo and Kvyat. With ten laps to go, a virtual Safetycar was called due to Pierre Gasly’s engine failure.

In this comotion, Hamilton was able to shorten the gap to Bottas again but the leader managed the rest of the race well. Leclerc, on the other hand, had no chance to get on the podium, so he decided to go for the fastest laps and won one more point for his efforts. Finally, he settled in fifth place behind Max Verstappen.

Sunday Results

Drivers Rankings

Team Ranking

Saturday Qualifying

Alle Ergebnisse, Zahlen und Zeiten vom Aserbaidschan GP 2019 in Baku auf einen Blick – die Resultate der Fahrer und Teams, alle Trainingsbestzeiten, die Pole-Position im Qualifying und das Rennergebnis finden Sie hier:

Wenn es darauf ankommt, ist Mercedes da. In Baku gibt es die nächste Doppel-Pole für die Stuttgarter, Valtteri Bottas setzt sich mit einem neuen Rundenrekord von 1:40.495 Minuten knappe 0,059 Sekunden vor Teamkollege Lewis Hamilton durch. Sebastian Vettel fehlen als Drittem drei Zehntel. Deutlich schlimmer erwischt es aber Ferrari-Teamkollege Charles Leclerc: Der in Aserbaidschan bis dahin dominierende Mann setzt sein Auto in Q2 in die Wand – nur Startplatz neun für das Rennen.Max Verstappen reiht sich im Red Bull eine halbe Sekunde hinter der Spitze als Vierter ein. Bitter ist das Resultat für Nico Hülkenberg: Der Deutsche scheidet schon in Q1 aus, kommt nur auf die 18. Position.

Valtteri Bottas claimed his second pole of the season at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix 2019 with pre-qualifying favorite Charles Leclerc out after a crash in Q2.

At critical moments, you can count on Mercedes – another double pole for the German manufacturer from Stuttgart. On top of that Valtteri Bottas sets a new lap record with 1:40.495 minutes just 0.055 seconds ahead of teammate Lewis Hamilton.

Sebastian Vettel behind in third place with a three-tenths gap. Ferrari team-mate Charles Leclerc experienced another shocking moment of his Ferrari career in Q2. Dominating Baku so far, he put his car into a wall in Q2 which means only ninth on the grid.

Max Verstappen in his Red Bull is in fourth position half a second behind the leader. Nico Hulkenberg has nothing to be happy of. The German was already eliminated in Q1, with 18th on the grid for tomorrow.

Provisional Starting Grid

3rd Practic – Saturday:

1. Charles Leclerc – Ferrari 1:41,604 minutes
2. Sebastian Vettel – Ferrari +0,198 seconds
3. Max Verstappen – Red Bull +1,248
4. Valtteri Bottas – Mercedes +1,460
5. Lewis Hamilton – Mercedes +1,572
6. Daniil Kvyat – Toro Rosso +1,619
7. Kevin Magnussen – Haas +1,690
8. Alexander Albon – Toro Rosso +1,696
9. Sergio Perez – Racing Point +1,826
10. Kimi Räikkönen – Alfa Romeo +1,933
11. Daniel Ricciardo – Renault +1,957
12. Antonio Giovinazzi – Alfa Romeo +2,033
13. Lando Norris – McLaren +2,320
14. Carlos Sainz Jr. – McLaren +2,374
15. Lance Stroll – Racing Point +2,435
16. Nico Hülkenberg – Renault +2,439
17. Romain Grosjean – Haas +2,770
18. Robert Kubica – Williams +4,396
19. George Russell – Williams +4,686
20. Pierre Gasly – Red Bull +6,232

2nd Practice – Friday:

1. Charles Leclerc  – Ferrari 1:42,872 Minuten
2. Sebastian Vettel – Ferrari +0,324 Sekunden
3. Lewis Hamilton – Mercedes +0,669
4. Max Verstappen – Red Bull +0,921
5. Valtteri Bottas – Mercedes +1,131
6. Daniil Kvyat – Toro Rosso +1,305
7. Carlos Sainz Jr. – McLaren +1,311
8. Alexander Albon – Toro Rosso +1,344
9. Pierre Gasly – Red Bull +1,368
10. Lando Norris – McLaren +1,423
11. Kevin Magnussen – Haas +2,029
12. Antonio Giovinazzi – Alfa Romeo +2,494
13. Sergio Perez – Racing Point +2,564
14. Kimi Räikkönen – Alfa Romeo +2,610
15. Daniel Ricciardo – Renault +2,611
16. Romain Grosjean – Haas +2,746
17. Nico Hülkenberg – Renault +3,845
18. Lance Stroll – Racing Point +5,003
19. Robert Kubica – Williams +5,239
20. George Russell – Williams (no time clocked after crash)

1st Practice – Friday:

The Azerbaijan GP started with a chaos situation. After only 12 minutes into the first practice session, it was decided to stop it due to security concerns. After Williams driver George Russell damaged his car due to an unsealed manhole cover. At this time, only the two Ferrari Pilots recorded lap times:

1. Charles Leclerc – Ferrari 1:47,497 Minuten
2. Sebastian Vettel – Ferrari +2,101 Sekunden