F1 Azerbaijan Grand Prix: Oscar Piastri fights for second place

The streets of Baku held many surprises for Formula 1 fans and delivered a series of rather surprising results. In qualifying, Charles Leclerc took pole position by a wide margin, while second in the championship, Lando Norris, was eliminated in Q1. Then, in the race, Oscar Piastri managed to take the lead from Charles Leclerc to take his second win in Formula 1. Since there was no drama surrounding team orders this time around, Piastri won the race through pure speed and racing skill, so it actually felt like a win. A somewhat bizarre collision between Carlos Sainz and Sergio Perez late in the race saw George Russell take the final spot on the podium.

This weekend was great for Michael, despite a somewhat rocky start. Based on their recent form, they seemed like an unbeatable team. However, Lando Norris failed at the first hurdle in qualifying and could only finish 17th, while Max Verstappen finished sixth. Piastri qualified second and was unable to take the lead from Leclerc at first. In fact, Leclerc opened up a gap of 6 seconds at one point. However, things started to change when the Monegasque driver pitted for hard tyres. The car did not fare well on the whitewall rubber and Piastri made a majestic dive into Turn 1 on lap 20. Once Leclerc lost the lead, he never got it back. Despite repeated efforts, Piastri did not succumb to the pressure and showed amazing racing skills.

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On the other side of the Papaya garage, Norris moved up to 15th at the start of the race as Lewis Hamilton and Esteban Ocon started from the pits due to installing extra parts outside of their allocation. He then steadily broke through the field and even finished 4th ahead of Verstappen. He even kept the bonus point for the fastest lap, reducing the championship gap to 59 points. This result put McLaren in the lead of the constructors’ championship again after a 10-year absence.

The collision between Perez and Sainz was a hot topic of the race. Before the unfortunate accident, Perez was finally having a strong weekend and was on track to finish on the podium after 11 races without a win. On the penultimate lap, when he tried to overtake Leclerc at Turn 1, he was overtaken by Sainz. Then on the straight, the two made slight contact and tangled, eventually hitting the guardrail. Thankfully, both drivers were unharmed.

Another team that will be very happy after the race is Williams. Both of their drivers finished in the points, earning the team a total of 10 points. Rookie Franco Colapinto, who replaced Logan Sargent mid-season, scored his first F1 point with an eighth-place finish, just one place behind teammate Alexander Albon. In fact, the other rookie on the track this weekend, Oliver Bellmann, also managed to finish tenth, earning a point for the Haas team. Bellmann has now become the first driver in the history of the sport to score points for two different teams in the first two races.

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Russell picked up the podium scraps again when the drivers ahead of him collided. His teammate Lewis Hamilton had a poor weekend. Although Hamilton finished seventh, the penalty meant he had to start from the pit lane. However, unlike Norris, Hamilton would not have been able to race past the pack at the same pace and would not have scored any points if not for the crash.
Stake, Alpine and RB all finished in the last few places, but none of them scored any points. Yuki Tsunoda even suffered serious damage after an incident with Lance Stroll early in the race. The damage was enough to take RB out of the race. However, Stroll’s teammate Fernando Alonso performed much better and ended up in sixth place.