Sergio Perez celebrates his 2nd win of the season in Azerbaijan Credit: Bryn Lennon/Getty Images

Sergio Perez
Max Verstappen +2.137
Charles Leclerc +21.217
Fernando Alonso +22.024
Carlos Sainz +45.491
Lewis Hamilton +46.145
Lance Stroll +51.617
George Russell +74.24
Lando Norris +80.376
Yuki Tsunoda +83.862
Oscar Piastri +86.501
Alex Albon +88.623
Kevin Magnussen +89.729
Pierre Gasly +91.332
Esteban Ocon +97.794
Logan Sargeant +100.943
Nico Hulkenberg +1 Lap
Valtteri Bottas +1 Lap
Zhou Guanyu DNF
Nyck De Vries DNF

Back from the spring break in the 2023 Formula 1 season and not much has changed. It’s still Red Bull domination. The Azerbaijan Grand Prix had some excitement early on but not much going on after that, as Sergio Perez dominated the race on the way to his second win of the season. Despite the dominating performance from Red Bull in the race, it was actually Charles Leclerc in a Ferrari that surprisingly grabbed the pole position in qualifying. After a miserable start to the season for Ferrari, it was nice to see them bounce back in qualifying putting Leclerc on the pole and Sainz in 4th place. Sandwiched between the pair of Ferrari’s were the Red Bulls with Verstappen starting 2nd and Perez starting 3rd.

At the start of the race there was no movement among the top 7 drivers with each one filing into order that they lined up on the grid. Verstappen was all over Leclerc in the first few laps and as soon as DRS was enabled on lap 3, Verstappen flew past Leclerc for the lead. Shortly after, Sergio Perez also got past the Ferrari and Red Bull were running 1-2 just a handful of laps into the race. On about lap 10 in the race Nyck De Vries clipped the wall which broke his left axle and of course his car came to a halt on the track. As soon as this happened Red Bull pit Verstappen, which would’ve worked out but half a lap later they brought out a full safety car. As a result of the safety car, all the other drivers were able to get a cheap pit stop and Verstappen dropped back to 3rd with Perez taking over the lead. Lewis Hamilton who was running 5th early in the race, also had pit before the safety car and ended up falling back to 10th as a result.

After the safety car came back in on lap 14, not much happened the rest of the race. Verstappen flew by Leclerc again for 2nd place and was in about a 2-3 second range behind Perez for the rest of the race. Verstappen was just never able to cut the margin down below this and get into DRS range. Sergio Perez managed the race and the gap to Verstappen brilliantly and is now a two time Azerbaijan Gran Prix winner. Red Bull get their 3rd 1-2 finish of the season and we are only 4 races in.

3 Star Drivers

3rd Star - Lewis Hamilton

Despite the fact that Hamilton finished 6th when he started 5th, Hamilton drove a great race today. Like I mentioned earlier, Hamilton did not benefit at all from the safety car on lap 10. Hamilton had pit about two laps earlier as he was under pressure from Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll for 5th place. After Hamilton’s pit stop and the rest of the field got cheap pit stops under the safety car, Hamilton dropped back to 10th and was even behind his teammate George Russell, who had started 11th in the race. But after going back racing on lap 14, Hamilton immediately climbed up to 8th and then a lap or two later flew around his teammate George Russell. On lap 20, Hamilton got around Lance Stroll for 6th place after Stroll made a mistake and got loose going into a turn. Hamilton would put Sainz under some pressure and stay with the Ferrari for the remainder of the race but was never able to get around him. Again, unfortunate safety car for Hamilton but some great racing to get back up to 6th.

2nd Star - Fernando Alonso

Alonso’s fantastic pass on Sainz in turn 6
Credit: @F1 Twitter

Fernando Alonso started the race in 6th and followed behind Hamilton in the early part of the race. It was around lap 8 when Alonso started putting Hamilton under a ton of pressure and was going to easily pass him on the straight, but instead Hamilton decided to pull in the pits. Alonso was in 5th when the safety car came out and he actually didn’t gain or lose any spots when pitting, but due to him forcing Hamilton to pit early, he no longer had to battle with him. After the restart, Alonso made the pass of the race going around Carlos Sainz in turn 6 of all places. This pass alone put Alonso in the running for driver of the day. After the pass Fernando Alonso pulled away from Sainz and would put Leclerc under pressure for the remainder of the race but just wasn’t quite close enough to ever get in DRS range. A great drive by Fernando for 4th place and so close to another podium.

1st Star - Sergio Perez

Believe it or not, this is 3 straight driver of the day awards that I’ve given to Sergio Perez. He dominated and won in Saudi, he started last and climbed up to 5th in Australia, and today he started 3rd and ended up getting his second win of the season and his 2nd career win in Baku. This is now the first track that Sergio has ever won multiple races at. Also Sergio Perez was the winner in yesterday’s sprint race to pick up some more points. It would have been interesting to see how this played out between the two Red Bull’s had there not been the safety car. Perez was closing in on Verstappen and was just getting DRS when Verstappen ended up pitting. Without the safety car would Red Bull have let the two drivers go at it? Or would there have been some team orders? It seemed that Perez was slightly faster than Verstappen but I don’t know if he would have been fast enough to get around him. Either way, Perez took what was handed to him when the safety car came out and drove brilliantly when he was out front. Holding Verstappen out of DRS range and not making any mistakes while having Verstappen in your rear view mirror for 30+ laps is not an easy thing to do. Perez has had a great start to the season and should also be considered a street circuit master.

Other Notes:

McLaren continue to trend in the right direction. After being completely miserable in the first two races of the season they picked up a double points finish in Australia and almost had another double points finish today but Piastri finished just outside of the top 10 in 11th. Lando finished 9th and McLaren seem to be establishing themselves as maybe the 5th best team on the grid.
Speaking of other teams you’d expect to fight for 5th place in the constructors championship, what a bad day for Alpine. And it wasn’t like in Australia where they performed well and were unlucky with the finishing. Alpine were just bad all weekend. Gasly who always seems to struggle at street circuits finished 14th and Ocon who had to start from the race from the pit lane, ended up finishing 15th after he finally made his first pit stop of the day on the second to last lap of the race. More on that next. Races like this just prove how crucial those points in races like Australia could have been.
So back to Ocon’s last lap pit stop. It was truly one of the more bizarre things you’ll ever see in racing. It was like a step back in time to the 60s or 70s before sports prioritized safety. So everybody knows that the current F1 rules mandate that all drivers must make at least 1 pit stop and use at least 2 different tire compounds during a race. Since Ocon started the race from the pit lane and was in dead last, he started out on the hard compound tires. The strategy was to leave him out as long as possible and hope for a late safety car. Only the safety car came early and he was left still needing to pit in the final laps. Hulkenberg was also running this strategy and he made his pit stop with a couple of laps left. At this point it seems everybody in the pit lane had forgotten that Ocon had still not come in yet and they started to let all the photographers and cameramen make there way across the pit lane as the leader was closing in on his final lap. Only Ocon had not yet pitted and decided to make that pit stop just before he took the final lap. Ocon came into the pits as huge crowd of photographers stood and had to jump out of the way to avoid getting ran over. It was insane to see live and thankfully nobody got hurt.