Oscar Piastri put in an exceptional performance to keep Charles Leclerc at bay during the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, whilst Lando Norris recovered from starting 15th to beat Verstappen and finish 4th.
The start was simple enough as Leclerc managed to stay in front of Piastri and keep 1st coming out of turn 1. A few corners into the race, Stroll made contact with the side of Tsunoda, giving the former a puncture, and causing the latter to retire a few laps later. Lando Norris managed to make up a couple of positions during the first lap as he started his recovery drive up from 15th, and marking the first time he gained positions on the opening lap this season.
The early laps saw Piastri manage to stick close to Leclerc ahead, but would eventually begin to fall away. Leclerc looked to manage his tyres better at this stage of the race, whilst the tyres for many drivers looked to be degrading harsher than what was initially expected, causing some early pitstops to take place with the option of a two stop being available.
Whilst the likes of the Red Bull and Mercedes drivers would pit around lap 13 and 14, Piastri and Leclerc would stay out longer. McLaren had even told Norris, who had started on hards, to hold up Perez so that the undercut couldn’t be successfully executed. When Piastri did come in on lap 16, having managed to fall behind Leclerc by about 6 seconds, he was just able to eek back ahead of Perez and maintain an effective 2nd place.
Leclerc would respond a lap later, and whilst the stop from Ferrari was alright, it would seem that the tides had turned in this battle. Piastri had managed to cut into a good chunk of Leclerc’s lead, and by the time lap 20 rolled around, the Australian was able to make an audacious dive down the inside of turn 1, making the move stick and taking the lead from Leclerc.
The battle for first would not end there though, as Leclerc would be hot on the heels of Piastri for many, many laps after this. There were times at which Leclerc looked as though he was close enough to regain the lead, but every time Piastri was able to defend in a way indicative of a future world champion, always placing his car in the right place to fend off any threat.
Even Sergio Perez was part of this fight, having shown glimpses of past triumphs throughout this weekend. Whilst not possessing quite as much pace to threaten an overtake for 2nd, he was close on the heels of Leclerc, and was ready to pounce should one of the front two make a mistake.
Further back and the two main championship protagonists were right by one another. Norris, on his old hard tyres, was managing to fend off Max Verstappen, who was on much younger tyres. Verstappen’s troubles to get to grips with his car’s current behaviour continued as he complained about its brakes, and the dirty air coming from following Norris so closely would not have been doing him any favours. However, Norris’ pace was being hampered by Albon ahead, who had also started on hards, which was hampering Norris’ ability to try and push further forward in this race.
Eventually, this train of cars began to bring George Russell into the mix. Once Albon pit on lap 32, Norris was able to bridge the gap between himself and Verstappen, and by lap 34 Russell was able to move down the inside of Verstappen at turn 1, taking what would soon become 5th place from him.
Norris would pit onto fresh medium tyres on lap 38, emerging in 7th and 15 seconds behind Verstappen. Whilst the task was a difficult one, it became clear very quickly that Norris and his McLaren had the pace to get ahead of Verstappen and make gains in the championship fight. Norris would consistently make gains of over a second every lap after he pitted, and would take the bonus point for fastest lap along the way.
As Norris came closer to Verstappen, Sainz began to get closer to Perez, making things a potential four way fight for the win in the dying laps in this race. However, this would soon turn into a three way fight for the podium places, as it became clear that Leclerc’s tyres had reached a cliff, and Piastri was able to pull away into the distance, not having to worry about any attacks from behind any longer.
Norris would eventually overtake Verstappen on lap 49, and it wouldn’t be a moment too soon for the Brit, as the next lap would see a crash that would end the race prematurely. Perez would attempt to overtake Leclerc going into turn 1 on lap 50, but would be forced to take the outside line. Perez lost a lot of momentum here, inviting Sainz to come on through, with the Spaniard even looking to try and take 2nd from Leclerc around the outside of turn 2. This caused Sainz to now lose momentum down the straight, and Perez was able to get a run to try and regain 3rd. Then, as the two cars went side by side down the straight, they collided and put each other in the wall. This brought out the virtual safety car and neutralised the race until the chequered flag.
This promoted Russell into 3rd, Norris into 4th and Verstappen 5th. Verstappen had pit to try and take the fastest lap point away from Norris, though the crash obviously prevented him from doing so, and he was not at risk of losing a position to Alonso behind. The crash also meant that Williams were able to score 10 points from this race, more than they had for the entirety of this season up to this point, and puts them ahead of Alpine in the constructor’s standings. Within this, Fracno Colapinto was able to score points in only his 2nd race in Formula 1, as did Ollie Bearman, who after scoring points for Ferrari in Saudi Arabia, now brings himself up to 16th in the driver’s standings in F1 with his 10th place finish today.
McLaren also take the lead of the constructor’s standings for the first time since the 2014 Australian Grand Prix following this result.
The next race takes place next weekend under the lights on the streets of Singapore.
