Azerbaijan GP - Race

Hello @Stratastic
Sep 15, 2024
4 min read

Updated: Jan 30, 2025

F1 cars on track with an overlay of the Azerbaijan GP circuit outline.

Qatar Airways Azerbaijan GP

Race

September 15, 2024

Oscar Piastri claimed victory at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix after a thrilling showdown with Charles Leclerc, propelling his McLaren team ahead of Red Bull in the constructors' championship by a margin of 20 points.

The race concluded dramatically when Sergio Pérez and Carlos Sainz collided on the penultimate lap while battling for third place, resulting in a late virtual safety car period that allowed Piastri to secure the win with a lead of 10.9 seconds over Leclerc.

Despite leading the early stages of the race, Leclerc, who has secured four pole positions in Baku without a win, was overtaken by Piastri on lap 20. He then faced relentless pressure from the Ferrari driver for nearly 30 laps, with Leclerc making unsuccessful attempts to regain the lead on multiple occasions.

Piastri claimed his second career win after winning his debut race in Hungary earlier this year. This victory also helped McLaren gather the necessary points to surpass Red Bull in the constructors' standings for the first time this season.

The unexpected collision between Pérez and Sainz occurred when they seemed to unintentionally collide while attempting to take advantage of Leclerc's slipstream ahead of them.

Just two corners before, Pérez seemed to have secured a pass on Leclerc for second place at Turn 1 as the Ferrari driver began to struggle with his rear tires.

Leclerc defended his position well at Turn 1, which allowed Sainz to challenge Pérez into Turn 2.

Exiting Turn 2, Sainz was in front of Pérez, but their cars made contact as they accelerated down the straight, causing both to crash into the barriers on the left.

George Russell capitalized on the incident by claiming third place for Mercedes ahead of Lando Norris, who achieved a remarkable fourth-place finish after starting 15th on the grid.

Norris' impressive recovery drive included overtaking title rival Max Verstappen on the track, reducing the gap to the Red Bull driver to 59 points with seven races left.

Despite starting nine places behind Verstappen, Norris' unlikely victory in the race was unexpected. Verstappen, on the other hand, struggled once more and couldn't hold off Russell and Norris towards the end of the race.

Fernando Alonso crossed the finish line in sixth place for Aston Martin, followed by Alex Albon from Williams in seventh, both benefiting from the incidents that occurred ahead of them.

In only his second race, Franco Colapinto earned his first points for Williams, finishing eighth, ahead of seven-time champion Lewis Hamilton who came in ninth for Mercedes.

Substituting for Kevin Magnussen at Haas, Oliver Bearman clinched the final point by finishing tenth in just his second F1 race.

"That was probably the most stressful weekend of my life," After the race, Piastri expressed his gratitude to his team on the radio.

"I don't know what thank you in Azerbaijani is, but I'm not even going to attempt it." The Australian driver characterized his pass on Leclerc as a "lunge" following the race.

"I went for a pretty big lunge but I managed to pull it off and then hung on for dear life for the next 35 laps,"

The words came from him. "The last couple of laps, once he [Leclerc] dropped out of DRS, were a little more relaxing but there is no such thing as a relaxing lap around here. It was hard work but goes down as one of my better races of my career."

Meanwhile, Leclerc expressed his frustration with the way his car responded to the hard tires.

He said. "I think as soon as we put the hard tyres on [we struggled to fight]. On the mediums the car felt good and unfortunately we didn't do any high fuel running on my side in FP1 or FP2 and we went for a set-up direction in the race that was maybe a bit more difficult to manage,"

"Towards the end I really thought at one corner or two I was going to put it in the wall. It was very close. Second today, McLaren and Oscar have done an exceptional job and been better than us.

"It is a huge shame for Carlos on the last lap but hopefully everybody is OK, but not a great day for the team." last lap but hopefully everybody is OK, but not a great day for the team."