🏁 Street Fight

🥇Max Verstappen [313]: The team revealed their development direction started going wrong all the way back in Barcelona in 2023, but Max was so good that it hid a lot of the problems. If you remember, that’s around the time Checo’s performance went way down hill. Pretty incredible since the RB19 is considered one of the most dominant cars ever.

🥈Lando Norris [254]: Clip of Lando playing the team game and holding up Perez, allowing Piastri to maintain track position ahead of the Red Bull after his pit stop. The ‘ol Reverse Papaya Rules.

🥉Charles Leclerc [235]: Wants the team to review why time was lost during the pit process, which allowed Piastri to close the gap he had built early. But we’ve got to look into how the gap went from six seconds to one and a half, because that is definitely not what we expected. Even on a track where undercuts are big, it’s still four seconds and a half or four seconds – a lot of lap time loss, which I don’t exactly know why and where we’ve lost this lap time.”

4️⃣ Oscar Piastri [222]: His manager, former driver and fellow Aussie Mark Webber called his Baku performance “the best drive I’ve ever seen him pull off…Under a lot of pressure, very defensive decisive in the move itself and up against a world class driver – Charles around here is absolutely magical so to beat him around here is a pretty big deal.” Race of the year, drive of the year… what a performance.

5️⃣ Carlos Sainz [184]: On the collision with Checo: “We normally do a slight drift towards the left into the long straight, which I did like every other lap, and suddenly for some reason I don’t understand, Checo and I collided, which is unfortunate and also very disappointing… It’s racing, everything happens super fast.”

6️⃣ Lewis Hamilton [166]: Was very complimentary to both Colapinto and Bearman on the battles they had on track in Baku, saying racing with the next generation was “really cool.” The two rookies were thrilled with Lewis’ praise and both thanked him for his words in the comments of his Instagram post. Instagram comments are the highest form of respect in Gen Z culture.

7️⃣ George Russell 📈 [143]: Says the team “has to be realistic” as he lucked into another podium (and last time a win in Austria) as the result of a late crash ahead of him. He noted the positives: “on the hard tire I think we were one of the quickest out there and that was great. Got past Max, so an added bonus to stand on the podium.”

8️⃣ Sergio Perez 📉 [143]: Checo’s side of the story: “It’s very unfortunate. It all happened so quickly. I think Carlos was trying to follow the tow from Charles as he went to the inside and that really made things really hard.” If you look at the replay it was a racing inchident, but if I had to pick I’m giving slight blame to Perez. He was behind Sainz on the straight and had plenty of room to his left.

9️⃣ Fernando Alonso [58]: P6 in Baku matches his best finish since Canada, 8 races ago. “Normally only ninth and 10th are available to the midfield, but with the action in front of us, sixth was available so opportunistic Sunday for us.”

🔟Lance Stroll [24]: On his “frustrating” race that was pretty much cooked on lap 1: “My race was pretty much over on the first lap when Tsunoda and I made contact. I dived down the inside – I'm not sure if he saw me or not – but he closed the door and I had to pit with a puncture.”

11. Nico Hulkenberg [22]: Finished P11 for the seventh time this season, breaking the record for the amount of times a driver has finished one place outside the points. And also P11 in the standings? That’s consistency right there.

12. Yuki Tsunoda [22]: Has a different opinion than Lance on their first lap contact: ““In terms of what happened on track, it felt like an unnecessary move from him [Stroll]. Sending it in like that, with a nothing-to-lose approach. I’m not sure what he had to gain, but I wasn’t going to make it easy for him.”

13. Alex Albon 📈 [12]: Says the team’s performance was “a genuine surprise” and that their new update package was working. He was even running in P3 briefly in the first stint before pitting late. “It was actually unexpected for us to be in that kind of awkward position where we were in the mix with the leaders,…Obviously we didn’t pit yet but we were losing a lot of race time because of all the fighting that was going on around me.”

14. Daniel Ricciardo 📉 [12]: Says graining was a challenge, which caused him to lose a lot of time: “I’ve never experienced graining like that, the swing of lap time was up to four seconds. We need to understand why we had more graining for longer.”

15. Pierre Gasly 📉 [8]: Has mixed feelings on how his race played out: “On one side, I think it was the best race of the year on my side driving-wise, I was at the absolute limit every single lap every single corner…On the other side, we were dead slow the entire race and it was painful to see the others passing by – I just had no pace.” He knew Monza and Baku would be tough and looks to bounce back this weekend in Singapore, where he was P6 last year.

16. Ollie Bearman 📉 [7]: After a P10 finish, he becomes the first driver in F1 history to score points in his first two races for two different teams. Although he says the point was not “fully deserved” due to the crash ahead of him - he did out qualify and finish ahead of teammate Hulkenberg which was impressive.

17. Kevin Magnussen 📉 [6]: On sitting out last week: "It’s strange seeing your car run around and watching it on television…Baku is a really cool track so it was a shame it had to be that one, but this is a cool track as well and one that I think we should be able to do well at.”

18. Esteban Ocon [5]: Had a rough weekend after needing to change power unit components and had to start from the pit lane. “We will turn the page, there’s nothing good for us this weekend.”

19. Franco Colapinto 📈 [4]: Thrilled with the team’s double points finish: “It is very special, a dream come true. It is a long season still and we have many races left together but it is a great start. Very motivating for the next race.”

20. Zhou Guanyu 📉 [0]: Without a seat, doesn’t feel like he’s done: “I feel like there’s plenty more I can show to the paddock, to Formula 1.”

21. Logan Sargeant 📉 [0]: A congrats post from F1 for Colapinto on scoring points had a picture of his face actually photoshopped onto Logan’s body. So he’s still kinda in F1? Seems like an NIL violation.

22. Valtteri Bottas [0]: On current issues: “We are too sensitive on certain factors like ride, with cornering conditions. You can't turn things around overnight, lead times can be months.”

Constructor’s Corner

🥇McLaren 📈 [476]: And for the first time in 2.5 years… we have a new leader in the Constructors’ Championship. TP Stella on McLaren having that lead for the first time since 2014: “Such a strong team, such strong drivers – I’m very proud of them.. [First place is] an important milestone in our journey. However, the team remain clearly focused on the task ahead, and we use this positive moment to redouble our efforts for the coming races.” Now how about first place in drivers? Lando saved his chances with a mega recovery drive, finishing P4 from starting 15th, passing Max along the way to cut the lead. But he’s running out of races…

🥈Red Bull 📉 [456]: Max’s race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase has been promoted to Head of Racing. He’ll still remain Max’s engineer, as he also contributes duties that Jonathan Wheatly left behind.

🥉Ferrari [425]: TP Vassuer says they “had the pace to win..I think we probably missed out the last lap before the pit stop, the first lap after the pit stop and we missed the race at this stage…Now if we redid the race, do we have to pit one lap before? The lack of long stint before the weekend probably didn’t help Charles at this stage.”

4️⃣ Mercedes [309]: Toto says the team is looking to commit to a new floor specification in Austin.

5️⃣ Aston Martin [82]: Watch this video of their new design genius at work to see how Adrian Newey thinks about racecars.

6️⃣ VCARB [34]: Rumors are heating up that Liam Lawson will secure the second 2025 seat, with an announcement expected after Singapore - possibly even replacing Ricciardo for Austin. It’s the right thing to do… will miss Danny though 😥 

7️⃣ Haas [29]: With K-Mag’s return, he’s called on the FIA to trust drivers more rather than handing out penalties.

8️⃣ Williams 📈 [16]: Scored double points for only the second time in the last three seasons. TP Vowles has also said he’ll try to find Colapinto a seat in F1, though that’s looking slim for next season at the moment. He’ll likely have to wait a year a la Liam Lawson. As for the team,  they’re upgrades have been working, and Colapinto looks more than capable in the car through only two races. They have a legitimate shot to try to sit on top of the midfield at season’s end.

9️⃣ Alpine 📉 [13]: The CEO of Renault is set to meet with angry factory staff who have protested their decision to switch power units.

🔟Kick Sauber [0]: After averaging over 14 seconds per pit stop in the first 3 races, they got that number down to 2.4 seconds (for Baku pit stops only. But hey.. progress). They expect to make the call on their second driver in a “matter of weeks.”

• Next Gen Tires: Pirelli recently tested their 2026 boots at a test session in Barcelona. The wheel size will remain the same, but the width and external diameter have been reduced slightly.

• Bring Those Wings: Ferrari will join McLaren and Mercedes at the flexible front wing party, bringing forward an upgrade to Singapore that was originally planned for Austin.

• Flap Those Wings: We’ve covered the flexible front wings McLaren and Mercedes (and now Ferrari) have used this year, but the talk after last race was the flexible design of McLaren’s rear wing. At high speed, the bottom flexes slightly to produce a mini-DRS effect, even when DRS is not enabled. Low speeds don’t trigger the bending, allowing the car to maintain downforce in slower corners. Here’s an animation explainer and an illustration from gpblog.com 🔽 F1 is all about pushing the boundaries and finding gray areas in the regulations.. if not explicitly outlawed, it seems like they’ve just found a very clever design. 

• NBA Crossover: Pro basketball player Joel Embiid has seen enough, proclaiming Oscar Piastri a “Future World Champion” via tweet after his impressive win. If Embiid himself wants to hold the same title one day, he’ll have to get his flopping under control.

• F2 Crash: The feeder series also saw some fireworks in Azerbaijan, albeit for different reasons. Everyone was OK following the first lap mayhem.

• Crazy Fan: A Williams mechanic was luck to not be hit by Albon when he was released too early during Quali last weekend - with a cooling fan still stuck in his airbox.

Quick Question (My Answer)

I’m rolling with Charles. Remember Sainz broke the Red Bull streak here last year, in what is typically a tough circuit Max & Co. This season has been unpredictable though, so we’ll see what happens..