2021 Azerbaijan Grand Prix

## Lap Leader

The **2021 Azerbaijan Grand Prix**, was a Formula 1.5 motor race held on 6 June 2021 at the Baku City Circuit in Baku, Azerbaijan. The race, the sixth round of the 2021 Formula 1.5 World Championship, marked the fourth running of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, and the fifth time the country had hosted a Grand Prix, having also held the 2016 European Grand Prix.

Sebastian Vettel won the race after starting 7th, making it his fist win 13 years. Pierre Gasly came home second followed by Charles Leclerc in third.

## Background

### **Entry List**

The drivers and teams were the same as the season entry list with no additional stand-in drivers for the race.

### **Tyres**

Tyre supplier Pirelli brought the C3, C4 and C5 tyre compounds (designated hard, medium and soft respectively) for teams to use at the event.

### **Championship Standings**

Coming into the round Lando Norris, of McLaren, held a twenty-six point lead in the drivers championship, ahead of rival Charles Leclerc, who was driving for Ferrari. McLaren lead the constructors over Ferrari as well by just 10 points.

## Practice

The first practice session started at 12:30 local time (UTC+4) on 4 June, with second practice session starting at 16:00 on the same day, with a third practice session due to start at 13:00 local time on 5 June, with a three sessions lasting one hour. The first session ended with the Ferrari of Charles Leclerc fastest ahead of teammate Carlos Sainz and the McLaren of Daniel Ricciardo. Carlos sainz was fastest in the second practice session ahead of Ferrari teammate Charles Leclerc and Pierre Gasly. Leclerc finished 2nd having caused a virtual safety car after hitting the barrier at turn 15. Nicholas Latifi caused a red flag after his Williams car's engine failed.

## Qualifying

Qualifying started at 16:00 local time on 5 June. Lance Stroll, Antonio Giovinazzi, Daniel Ricciardo, Yuki Tsunoda, and Carlos Sainz Jr. all had accidents resulting in four red flags over the course of qualifying, tying it with the 2016 Hungarian Grand Prix as a record for the most red flags in a qualifying session. Charles Leclerc took pole position for the second consecutive event from Gasly and Sainz. After qualifying Lando Norris said he was left "gutted" after he was handed a three-place grid penalty as well as three-penalty points on his FIA Super Licence for failing to correctly follow the red flag procedures. Charles Leclerc was surprised to be on pole and said he thought his pole lap was "quite shit". Fernando Alonso, who qualified sixth, gave outspoken criticism of the fact that drivers who cause red flags are not punished, deeming it "unfair" that drivers who cause red flags are allowed to keep their grid positions.

## Race

### **Report**

The race started at 16:00 local time on 6 June and was contested over 51 laps. The start did not produce many overtakes, as Leclerc retained first place. Behind, Fernando Alonso climbed to fourth place and Sebastian Vettel to sixth, having started fith and seventh respectively. Esteban Ocon retired at the end of the lap 3 with a turbocharger failure.

On lap 8, Alonso became the first driver to make a pit stop for fresh tyres. Leclerc followed suit one lap later. On lap 11, Sainz outbraked himself into the turn 8 chicane dropping him from 4th to 11th, finding himself having to reverse out of a very narrow run off onto the racing line.

During the pitstops, Gasly passed Leclerc for the net-lead. Sebastian Vettel stayed out on his soft tyres, until the end of lap 17 where he then came out fourth, over-cutting Tsunoda with his new tyres, seven laps fresher than the tyres of Gasly and all the other runners in front.

On lap 32, Aston Martin's Lance Stroll suffered a left-rear tyre failure when exiting turn 20 onto the main straight, causing him to lose control and crash into the left-hand barriers, resulting in his retirement and the safety car being deployed. Stroll's stricken car had ended up on the pit lane entry and the pit lane was closed until it had been cleared. When the pit lane opened, the field had been brought together behind the safety car and none of the front runners elected to make a pit stop. The only ones who took a fresh set of tyres during the safety car period were Fernando Alonso, Antonio Giovinazzi, George Russell and Nikita Mazepin.

The safety car period ended after four laps and normal racing resumed on the start of lap 36. Vettel passed Leclerc on the resumption of racing for second place. At the end of the lap Vettel passed Gasly to climb into the lead. The top five order settled for the next eight laps.

On lap 46 F1.0 driver Verstappen suffered a tyre failure, identical to Lance Stroll's, as a result and the safety car was deployed for a second time. The race director ordered the cars to pass through the pit lane to bypass the accident scene. Williams' Nicholas Latifi was told to "stay out" by his engineer, which he interpreted as an instruction not to enter the pit lane. In fact, the cars were required to drive through the pit lane, and "stay out" had merely been an instruction not to stop for tyres while doing so. This failure to follow the race director's instructions cost him a post-race penalty of 30 seconds being added to his race time (which was converted from a 10 second stop-and-go penalty). A number of messages were exchanged between Masi and the teams during the red flag period; most notably, McLaren's Paul James complained that Tsunoda did not slow down sufficiently for the initial double-yellows, to which Masi replied that none of the drivers had sufficiently slowed and that all of them would be addressed post-race. Two laps after Verstappen's accident, the race was red-flagged and suspended.

After a delay of 34 minutes, the race was restarted on lap 50 with a standing start, using the race order at the moment of the suspension of the race. A scrap ensued between Gasly and Leclerc, with the former prevailing having exchanged positions twice down the main straight on the penultimate lap. Mick Schumacher had been passed by his teammate Mazepin at the restart but regained his position just before crossing the finish line to end the race.

Vettel won his third F1.5 race, his first for Aston Martin, and Aston Martin's first win in the sport.

### **Post Race**

With the tyre failures on the rear for Stroll, Pirelli lodged an investigation over the durability of the selected tyre compounds, their initial findings suggesting the tyre problems were linked to debris. Race director Masi is expected to reiterate the importance of yellow flag conditions to drivers prior to the French Grand Prix after the complaints lodged by McLaren during the race. Drivers, including Leclerc, said they would query the decision to delay the deployment of the safety car following Verstappen's crash late in the race.

## Championship standings after the race

Drivers' Championship standings

 +/-
 +/-
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 +1

Constructors' Championship standings

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 +1
 +1
 -2

## External Links

1. ↑  Lando Norris received a grid penalty for failing to comply with red flags in Q1.
2. ↑  Stroll failed to set a time during qualifying and was permitted to race at the stewards' discretion.
3. ↑  Giovinazzi failed to set a time during qualifying and was permitted to race at the stewards' discretion.
4. ↑  Includes one point for fastest lap
5. ↑  Nicholas Latifi received a 10-second stop-and-go penalty converted to a 30-second time penalty for failing to enter the pit lane as instructed during the safety car period.
6. ↑  George Russell was classified as they completed more than 90% of the race distance.