F1 2022 Round 8 - AZERBAIJAN GP
Eventfull race last year with tire fails and Brake magic and Aston Poduims
will it be more of the same ? , Will the Really really long straight show more bouncing than previous races .
Start times :
I think what happened in Spain had a lot to do with Checo winning in Monaco. Verstappen is Redbulls prized pony, he's going to be favoured. Checo is there to get podiums and help RB win the constructors
Red Bull had multiple opportunities to swap them in Monaco and chose not to and gave Checo priority in the pitstops when they could easily have pit Max first and he would have won the race.
They have a long and consistent history of never ever favouring one driver over the other, even when they had a four time WDC in the car he was never given number one status.
Perez has been beaten by Max in 99% of the races they’ve been teammates because he’s been slower, not because of some imaginary team decision.
I think he's driving really well and seems to have less issues with his car than Max which has helped.
I don't think he will win the championship but he can certainly challenge for it just like Leclerc.
And yet, you can be certain they will.
Leclerc needs to convert those poles to wins, he has 14 poles but only 4 wins
I don't believe Perez will win this season but he has to believe this is his chance . New cars means it's not fully developed towards Max yet like last year's car . So this year he is closer and Redbull have not picked a direction yet . He needs favours ,he needs Sainz to get into the mix as well , steal points form others . He currently is doing what he needs to do . Faster all this weekend again .
It makes better viewing for us .the more races he can string good weekends together the more confident he will get .
Yes, they can. It's their only option. Perez can't usually beat Charles, on pace. So they can't prioritise him over their faster driver who can beat Charles, on pace. Verstappen, with his poor reliability, is 15 points ahead or perez. Max would want to go on a run of 5 races without finishing (or break a leg like Schumacher in 99) to even make red bull consider perez their main championship option.
In not sure about that. He has had much better reliability than Max this year and red bull can't afford to prioritize a driver who isn't finishing races.
The sympathy vote championship. Not the WDC.
Doesn't really matter if he's quicker. He's the no.2. He has been decent in quali this year (much improved on last year). But he can be pretty far off Max's pace in races.
If red bull has an opportunity to swap the cars or even give max an advantage, they'll do it. Max is in the title battle, checo isn't.
I wouldn't be surprised to see them put Checo on a longer first stint to hold up the Ferraris after their first stop.
Leclerc is an outstanding qualifier. His ability to dig deep and pull out a huge lap is unparalleled on the grid.
I really hope RB don't gift a position for Max at the expense of Checo. He's legitimately in there for a Championship challenge.
Let’s have some perspective. In every single race they’ve finished this year prior to Monaco Max finished 10+ seconds ahead of Perez. Without the DRS issue in Spain he’d have probably finished 30 seconds ahead in that one. At Monaco Max couldn’t get a final Q3 run because Perez crashed, while in the race Perez was never able to pull away at all and Max looked to have the pace to comfortably keep up, but it’s impossible to overtake in Monaco and the team gave Checo priority in the pitstops.
They’ve been teammates for 29 races and Monaco was the first time Perez finished ahead where Max wasn’t taken out by reliability or a crash. Baku is Sergio’s best track by far so if he’s going to do well anywhere it’s here, but it’s a long race tomorrow and there’s a mountain of evidence pointing to Verstappen being comfortably the faster driver over a season.
No Further action against Hamilton & Norris , both were still on the lap Delta
Alpine look like they prepared for Just one section of the track .
perez is defo in the hunt for the championship.
Checo shouldn't be keen, quicker than Max again all this weekend.
It really is red bull ferrari and then the rest this year, they're a mile ahead of the rest. Toto seems absolutely dejected everytime he gives an interview about the car.
Should be an interesting race tomorrow with safety cars/ red flags a possibility, midfield seems on top of eachother so hopefully some good racing there. If Perez and Verstappen can get past leclerc it will be interesting to see if team orders come into play, I can't envisage checo being too keen to be a team player this time around.
Did Leclerc just smoke Herbert at the end of his interview there? Haha
At least one red flag tomorrow surely.
Literally all the challengers hit a wall at least once. It’s quali on a street circuit and they’re going for it. Makes the spectacle even more impressive.
I have to say it’s a real treat to see all four top drivers pushing to the absolute maximum on every lap, which has been happening all season but is particularly noticeable at street circuits with the walls closing in like Baku and Monaco. It’s such a change from the majority of the hybrid era races being won by dominant cars being driven nowhere near their limits.
Can’t stand him, so much cringe bringing up Monaco
Looking forward to tomorrow, hopefully the bulls get past handy enough. Another dominant showing from Russell over Hamilton too, was that down to a tow I wonder or just a better lap.
Same as Lewis could have passed Max in Saudi last year instead of deciding to crash into the back of him.
Christ, Herbert is insufferable
The speed Red Bull have will be hige on that straight, with DRS, they should overtake with some ease.
With the Red Bull top speed advantage it should be easy to pass Leclerc and take a 1-2
What a pole lap from LeClerc,
Take a bow.
Will be some race for the top four tomorrow.
And everybody here would be giving out about him whinging and saying he should just go past him.
Hamilton is going unnecessarily slowly, but there is literally nothing stopping Norris from driving past him instead of just driving up behind him.
Well done Perez!!!!
