Who’s hot 🔥 and who’s not 👎🻠in Azerbaijan? Motorsport Week takes a look at how teams and drivers have fared during the brief history of action at the Baku City Circuit.
Wins ðŸ†
Only two of the 20 drivers on the grid have savoured Formula 1 success in Azerbaijan – Daniel Ricciardo and Lewis Hamilton.
Ricciardo surged from 10th on the grid to triumph at the crazy 2017 race while in similarly frantic style Hamilton picked up the pieces to take victory in 2018.
Mercedes’ Nico Rosberg took the win upon Baku’s debut in 2016, when the race was given the European – rather than Azerbaijan – Grand Prix moniker.
Related: Five key talking points ahead of the 2019 Azerbaijan GP
Podiums 🎉
Of the current grid the driver with the most Baku podiums – in fact, the only driver to mount the rostrum there twice – is, remarkably, Racing Point’s Sergio Perez.
Perez took third in 2016 and 2018 as he profited from Force India’s inherently strong pace and a little bit of trouble elsewhere.
Ricciardo and Hamilton’s respective wins marked their only time on the Baku podium, while Sebastian Vettel, Valtteri Bottas, Kimi Raikkonen and Lance Stroll have also picked up a top three finish at the track.
Poles 💨
This has been the domain of World Champions up to this point.
Rosberg took pole position in 2016 while a year later it was Hamilton’s turn to top qualifying.
In 2018 Vettel edged Hamilton by just under two-tenths of a second to put Ferrari on top in Azerbaijan for the first time.
What else? ðŸ”
Baku City Circuit, along with Sochi Autodrom and Yas Marina Circuit, is one of only three venues on the current calendar at which Ferrari has yet to take a victory.
For Charles Leclerc it has been a favoured venue – he dominated the Formula 2 weekend in 2017, just days after the death of his father, and took his best 2018 result at the circuit, placing sixth.
Stroll has taken points on both of his visits to Baku – adding an eighth to his shock 2017 podium –
It isn’t a happy hunting ground for Nico Hulkenberg – he spun in Q2 in 2016, racing to ninth as then team-mate Perez took a podium – and crashed out in both 2017 and 2018 while running strongly.
Red Bull’s Max Verstappen has a similarly dire record at the event, with eighth in 2016 his sole finish, after an oil pressure problem in 2017 and last year’s high-profile clash with Ricciardo denied him points.
This weekend marks a year since McLaren has had both cars in the points – that day Fernando Alonso dragged his damaged car to seventh, two spots ahead of Stoffel Vandoorne.
Azerbaijan was Hamilton’s first 2018 win but since then he has been red hot; he has won 13 of the 21 races in the last 12 months – and since last year’s German GP he has triumphed at 10 of the 14 races held.
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