In the end… Red Bull wins. Sergio Pérez won the first sprint race of the Formula 1 season on Saturday in the streets of Baku in Azerbaijan, ahead of poleman Charles Leclerc and championship leader Max Verstappen (Red Bull).
On the shores of the Caspian Sea, the scene of the 4th round of the year, Leclerc had predicted: “it will be difficult to keep the reins” against the overpowering Red Bull. The Monegasque was not mistaken: despite a good start – then a good restart after the intervention of the safety car at the start of the race, the Scuderia driver only survived eight laps. (out of 17) at the RB19 of Pérez. “The Red Bulls still have the advantage in the race, but we must not forget how far we were on the previous meetings”, welcomes Leclerc, who offers Ferrari its best ranking in the race since the arrival of Frédéric Vasseur. at the head of the team, in January.
At the back, Verstappen, double reigning world champion and third on the grid, had a hectic start to the sprint. In the fight to keep his position against the Briton George Russell (Mercedes), the Dutchman was hit by his opponent’s Mercedes and his single-seater was damaged at the level of the pontoon. “I just don’t understand why take so many risks in the first lap,” he railed against Russell after the finish. Russell finished 4th ahead of the other Ferrari, that of Carlos Sainz, 5th.
Spaniard Fernando Alonso, in great form since the start of the season at the wheel of his Aston Martin, finished 6th after a sprint which was contested for the first time on an urban circuit since the establishment of the format in 2021. But, unlike what has been done until now, F1 has modified this format and the sprint, which usually determined the grid for the GP the next day, no longer has any impact for the day on Sunday. . The sprint also has its own qualifying session contested earlier in the day.
In order to determine the starting grid for the GP on Sunday, the drivers had played a first qualifying session on Friday at the end of which Leclerc had already taken pole, ahead of Verstappen. The opportunity for the Dutchman, so dominating since the start of the season, to take his revenge?
Just over 100 km long, swallowed up in around thirty minutes (i.e. 17 laps in Baku), the sprint race offers a few points in the championship: from eight points for the first to one point for the 8th. In the driver standings, Leclerc, 10th before this sprint, moved up to 8th place, with 13 points. Verstappen (75 points) is still well ahead and still ahead of teammate Pérez (62 pts), Alonso (48) and seven-time British champion Lewis Hamilton (40). At the rear, the image of the sprint will certainly remain that of Yuki Tsunoda’s tire (Alpha Tauri) packing up on the Baku track. The Japanese had to give up.
On the French side at Alpine, Pierre Gasly finished 13th, Esteban Ocon, 18th – far from the points. In Azerbaijan, the tricolor team is currently living through a nightmarish weekend. On Friday, its drivers only rode a little during the only free practice session of the weekend. Gasly notably saw his engine go up in smoke just a quarter of an hour after the start of practice, while Ocon immediately returned to the garage to check for a potential problem in the back of his single-seater. Later in the day, Gasly qualified only 19th, Ocon 12th for the GP on Sunday.
With things going from bad to worse, on Saturday Ocon received a penalty for “taking [his single-seater] out of the parc fermé regime” despite snatching 13th place earlier in the day for the sprint. The Normand will again be forced to leave the pits on Sunday.
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