Azerbaijan: post-race analysis 2022
A mixed bag this race, with bad luck threatening both halves
of the bet but only determining one aspect. The race was green, the weekend
red. I also discovered there is no word in Italian for ‘reliability’.
Off the line Perez started well and snatched the lead from Leclerc. Further down, Vettel also made a good start to pass Tsunoda, though elsewhere it was formation flying. Perez immediately pushed hard to pull away from Leclerc, but in so doing buggered his tyres. He was able to maintain a 2s gap to the Monegasque, who was helpfully blocking the fast Verstappen, but this would tell later in the race.
Ricciardo (hard) was right behind Norris (medium) and obviously faster but the team decided to hold station even though the Aussie, on pace, perhaps should have been let through.
Meanwhile, Russell was doing a better job holding onto Sainz
than Sainz was holding onto the top three. The Spaniard’s run of spectacular
bad luck continued when a hydraulic failure ended his race and brought out the
VSC. This was early enough that only about half the field opted to box. The Red
Bulls did not, Leclerc did, for the hard tyre (like most others he had started
on the medium).
Soon the Monegasque was putting in great lap times, and though
Verstappen easily passed Perez (the Mexican was told ‘no fighting’ but his
tyres had gone and he was a sitting duck anyway) his title rival at Ferrari was
closing the gap rapidly.
Meanwhile, Ricciardo was being kept behind Norris to try and protect his team mate from being passed and to let him overcut Alonso. This achieved nothing, as Norris pitted and emerged behind Alonso, except to compromise Ricciardo even more.
Zhou Guanyu was ahead of Bottas despite having made an early
stop and was looking great. Until his car had to be boxed and retired for reliability
reasons.
Ferrari then Ferraried. Leclerc’s engine blew, and though he
was able to cruise into the pits this completed the worst possible result for
the Prancing Horse. Another Ferrari-powered car failed with Magnussen. He
parked the car well but a VSC was still needed and this enabled Ricciardo to
swap his hard for medium tyres, and he emerged ahead of his team mate.
Weirdly, the Aussie was nowhere near as competitive as might have been expected, and Norris, on older hard tyres, would’ve passed him had he not been ordered not to.
Another reliability failure was Tsunoda’s DRS which, unusually, was half-broken (the left side). He pitted but instead of retiring the crew taped it up, told him not to use DRS, and sent him out. Not sure that was sensible.
As you may’ve noticed, the lack of talk about on-track action was that, late on, there wasn’t much. Hamilton passed Gasly, who had older tyres, and that was pretty much it.
The gaps between the top four were all about 20s with McLaren closest on track.
Verstappen got the win and extends his title lead over his nearest rival, who is now Perez. Russell adds another podium to his collection, and 4th might be some consolation to Hamilton, who was complaining of back pain during the race.
Gasly got 5th ahead of Vettel, who had a strong race despite locking up and losing a few places earlier. Alonso’s 7th is handy for Alpine, (Ocon got the final point), and Ricciardo and Norris were 8th and 9th, which may have exceeded expectations for McLaren given how slow they are in a straight line.
Shame about the Zhou Guanyu side, but the Ricciardo bet came off. Some pre-weekend betting on Perez also came out green.
Ferrari’s reliability is going to cost them a chance at either title unless they resolve it. Not much time, though, as Canada is next weekend.
Morris Dancer
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