Sergio Perez has won his maiden race for Red Bull, surviving a late-race restart that was called after team-mate Max Verstappen suffered tyre failure.
Verstappen dominated much of the grand prix, with Perez following behind. However, with just a handful of laps remaining, Verstappen’s left rear tyre gave away on the start-finish straight, which brought out a red flag.
Midway through the grand prix, Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll also suffered a left-rear tyre blowout early on down the start-finish straight on ageing Hard tyres. Stroll was yet to make his first pit stop, with the resulting crash bringing out a Safety Car.
At the standing restart, with just two laps remaining, Perez looked to have lost the lead to Lewis Hamilton on the run into the first corner, however the seven-time world champion locked up into Turn 1 and descended down the order, leaving him to score zero points.
Sebastian Vettel bagged his first podium finish for Aston Martin, despite starting the grand prix from 11th on the grid. The German pitted later than his rivals on Soft tyres, and made his way forward and into the top positions in the second half of the race.
Pierre Gasly took the final spot on the podium, securing his third career top-three finish. The 25-year-old was forced to hold off Charles Leclerc, who started the race from pole position, on the final lap.
Verstappen retains championship lead
With both Verstappen and Hamilton failing to score points in Azerbaijan, the former retains his championship lead over Hamilton by four points after six rounds.
The early advantage in the race went to Hamilton, who made quick work of pole-sitter Leclerc, before Verstappen followed him through a handful of laps later.
Hamilton was the first of the two to pit, but a slow stop provided Red Bull an opportunity. On the following two laps, Verstappen and Perez pitted, and emerged back onto the circuit in first and second respectively.
Hamilton stuck close to Perez for the remainder of the laps prior to the red flag, but couldn’t make his way past the Mexican, for what was, at the time, second place on the road.
When the chequered flag fell, it was Leclerc who was fourth, ahead of McLaren’s Lando Norris. Fernando Alonso and Yuki Tsunoda secured their best results of the season so far in sixth and seventh respectively.
Carlos Sainz was eighth, his race hampered by a mistake at Turn 8 that saw him lock up and run down the escape road during his out lap from the pits. Daniel Ricciardo was ninth, while Kimi Raikkonen scored his first point of the season in tenth.
Bottas endures disaster race in second Mercedes car
Outside of the top ten, the most eye-catching name aside from those who had troubles was Valtteri Bottas, who failed to move forward throughout the 51 laps.
The Finn started from 10th but was stuck in traffic for much of the race, before falling behind at the restart to cross the line in 12th, behind Antonio Giovinazzi.
The Haas duo of Mick Schumacher and Nikita Mazepin were 13th and 14th respectively, heading Hamilton and Williams’ Nicholas Latifi.
The second Williams car of George Russell retired on the formation lap to the grid at the restart – the Briton was the fourth driver to not see the chequered flag alongside Verstappen, Stroll and Esteban Ocon.
[motorsport_result id=’65020′]
Discussion about this post