⚠️SPOILERS INSIDE: We are racing again!⚠️

Good morning. Just wow… Baku did not disappoint this weekend. We all know that street circuits can be places where anything goes, but the grid really took that to another level this time around. Not only did we have an epic battle at the front, we had multiple story lines throughout the lineup that kept my eyes glued to the screen.

Now we can look forward to a second round on the streets in Singapore this weekend. Will we get a repeat of the action at Baku? Will we see a lively Red Bull again? So many questions and so many opportunities for me to get race predictions horribly wrong!

-Jake Williamson

📊 Standings

🏎 Let’s Debrief That Crazy Race

If you haven’t watched the race, then do yourself a favor and watch the highlights.

Street circuits are either fun to watch or incredibly dull. Frankly, there aren’t numerous passing opportunities on city streets, which means these races are generally determined by qualifying the day before or safety cars that come out after drivers get a little too spicy on the narrow roads.

However, Baku delivered a level of racing that we haven’t seen in F1 in many years. Just take a look at these highlights:

• An epic battle at the front that came down to Jedi like race craft from Piastri

• Hamilton struggling to recover from a pit lane start after an engine swap

• Norris starting from P15 and finishing P4

• Norris held off Checo for a fraction of a second to allow his front-running teammate to safely pit and hold his position. Legend!

• Rookie Bearman having a battle with the legend himself, Hamilton

• Both Williams finished in major points

• Checo and Sainz crashed out in the 50th lap

There is so much more to this race, but my ultimate takeaway is that the real head-to-head seems to be between McLaren and Ferrari at this point as Red Bull continues to fight to recover from their car issues. Although Red Bull brought some positive upgrades to help them hold onto at least one championship, they do seem to struggle with car setup.

What’s more? Mercedes can’t seem to hold onto any sort of consistency in results. Even though Russell ended up P3 this weekend, I don’t think the silver arrows have found their footing yet, but they are sure to figure out a way back to the top.

Winners:

• McLaren obviously got the win at Baku but they are also a winner in my book because they seem to have the whole package. They have cars that are generally fast, and they have laser-focused drivers who have the skill to race when the car doesn’t perform as well.

• Williams won big this weekend. Albon P7 and Colapinto P8 are great results for the team, and this is exactly what Vowles was after.

• Bearman proves he can drive something other than a Ferrari

Losers:

• Hamilton barely finished in the points after a disappointing pit lane start.

• Checo and Sainz had an unnecessary crash on the penultimate lap.

Shockers:

• Verstappen couldn’t get past P5 after a major rear-bouncing issue

• Leclerc’s rear tyres couldn’t hold up to the battle with Piastri in the final laps

• Piastri’s unbelievable overtake on Leclerc into Turn 1 to take the lead.

My predictions:

• Leclerc - P1

• Norris - P2

• Piastri - P3

• Verstappen - P4

• Hamilton - P5

• Sainz - P6

• Russel - P7

Turns out my predictions from Friday were completely wrong. I don’t think this is far off if Norris didn’t have his issue in qualifying and Hamilton didn’t start from the pits. However, I was still wrong, and I look forward to the day I get one of these 100% correct.

See you guys in Singapore this weekend!

🌎 Sainz and Checo Swap Paint

Carlos Sainz and Sergio Perez must have gotten on the radio to complain about the lack of safety cars in Baku this weekend and decided to work together to solve that. This is the only explanation for the bizarre and completely unnecessary coming together at the Azerbaijan GP this weekend. Watch the wreck here.

For those of you with less time on your hands, here is the 10-second version. Perez went for an overtake on the dusty line into turn 1, went slightly wide, and caught some understeer. This led to an opportunity for Sainz to overtake Checo for P3. Sainz went on the attack against his teammate (Leclerc) into turn 2 and went wide himself. This allowed Checo to go side by side, with Sainz coming out of turn 2. Both cars were chasing Leclerc’s draft and came together to put an early end to their race.

This was brilliant racing punctuated by a bizarre crash, which allowed Piastri to take P1 under virtual safety car and moved George Russel onto the podium.

Of course, Red Bull blames Sainz for a “quick move” to the left, and Ferrari blames Checo for not leaving enough space for the Spanish driver. Ultimately, after investigation, the stewards deemed this a “racing incident” and didn’t penalize or assign blame.

Fred Vasseur told Autosport: “If Horner is expecting for Carlos then I am expecting a grid penalty for Checo, he had plenty of room on the left-hand side.”

Helmut Marko said of the crash, “I see Sainz making a rather abrupt move to the left, which then triggered this crash.”

If you ask me, the stewards have this right. I think Sainz starts to drift to the left, not realizing Checo is halfway alongside him. Meanwhile, Checo could have given Sainz more space since the Spaniard had the racing line.

🚀Headline Sprint

👍Job opening at Williams: If you think you can install AND remove a cooling fan from an F1 car, then you may have a shot at taking a job in the Williams garage. In a stunning development for Q3 this weekend, Alex Albon had to stop at the pit exit to take care of a neon green cooling fan that was left attached to the air box behind Albon’s head. After a helpful radio message from Oscar Piastri, Alex Albon weighed his choices regarding the removal of this equipment. The rules say that marshals can’t touch the cars on track, so Albon had to remove the fan and chuck it to the side of the track so he could complete his quali run. On top of all this, some dry ice was left on the car that led to quite the dramatic exit from the pits after throwing the fan to the side.

😥Norris lost out in Q1 due to a mistaken yellow flag: One of the biggest stories this weekend was Lando Norris being eliminated from Q1 due to a mistimed yellow flag in the closing stages of the session. Lando was held up by a damaged Alpine driven by Esteban Ocon, who threw a yellow flag. Norris had to lift off the throttle and abort the flying lap. Norris said afterwards, "The car is quick, I think the lap I was on I could have easily gone second, a bit frustrating but nothing I can do." He had a great attitude that ultimately carried into the race since he ended up finishing P4 with the fastest lap.

🎊Colapinto and Bearman get points: After this weekend, any notion that Bearman was lucky in the Ferrari or Colapinto was an ill-advised addition to the Williams team can be put aside. Colapinto finished P8 at Baku, scoring the first points for an Argentinian driver since 1982, and Ollie Bearman finished with a point in P10 ahead of Nico Hulkenberg, proving that his skills translate beyond the Ferrari. These drivers give us hope for the future of F1!

🛞 Opinion: Lawrence Is a Big Baller

It's time to admit something that many are thinking but no one wants to admit: Lawrence Stroll is a major baller in F1 and brings us back to the team principal/owner days of yesteryear. He is showing the world what you can do when you take ‘ownership’ of a team, show up every day, put the work in, and ultimately put your money where your mouth is.

Of course, no one wants to admit this because everyone who has witnessed the rise of Stroll from buying Racing Point in 2018 has dismissed him as a big-baller billionaire who wants to play with fast cars and flaunt his wealth. Frankly, no one can blame you for thinking this. The fact that he put his son, Lance, in one of the Racing Point seats was proof enough that the Stroll family was dripping with nepotism and weren’t serious about Formula 1.

However, things changed in 2020 when Lawrence led an investment group in the purchase of a 16.7% stake in Aston Martin. Lawrence shortly became chairman of the British car company and rebranded Racing Point to Aston Martin F1.

Even though many of you may not have been sold on Lawrence at this point. This major move showed that the billionaire was not just messing around in F1; he wanted to bring a heritage name to the grid and dominate.

Some highlights since then:

• Stroll keeps his son in the car (annoying but understandable)

• Aston signs two-time world champion Fernando Alonso to the team

• Lawrence recruits major technical names from rival teams

• Most recently, stroll brought on the most important man in F1 - Adrian Newey

All these are well and good, but the most impressive piece to this ever-growing puzzle is the fact that Lawrence dedicated significant resources to building brand-new, state-of-the-art facilities at their Silverstone HQ. This new facility is the glue that holds the growing team together. Here, Aston Martin will be able to build a car from the ground up. Gear box, chassis, suspension, brakes, aero packages, etc. all will be designed and produced at the Silverstone base. Furthermore, the team (Led by Newey) will be able to test and develop their cars in their brand-new wind tunnel. It’s basically like an engineering paradise.

How did Lawrence pay for all of this? Well, this is where it gets interesting. So many teams in F1 claim their teams are worth billions and billions of dollars, but this is all theoretical because you can only value something based on what the market will pay.

So, instead of just talking about it, Lawrence Stroll decided to see if the market would support his vision for a world championship team at Aston. He sold a minority stake in the F1 team to a private equity firm at a valuation of $1.25 Billion. This small stake was reportedly worth hundreds of millions of dollars, and it was poured into the new facilities at Silverstone.

So, Lawrence Stroll has gone from a Billionaire playboy who wanted to buy his son a sea tin F1 to a well-funded steamroller that is hellbent on building Aston Martin into a world championship-winning team. Color us impressed!

🏎 Red Bull Found Their Sweet Spot

Red Bull seemed to come alive again at Baku. Verstappen seemed to have good pace, and Checo proved, once again, that he is the king of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, until the bit on the penultimate lap…

But why did Red Bull seem more at home at Baku this weekend? Well, that may come down to two things:

1. Positive performance upgrades that have been added to the RB20

2. The stiff RB20 didn’t need to compromise the setup because Baku is sort of the same all over.

Let’s address the setup changes that Max Verstappen was uncharacteristically positive about after a lackluster P5 finish for the 3-time world champion.

Red Bull brought some very subtle upgrades to Baku. They brought a front wing with reduced camber on the thin wings (reduces drag and downforce at the front), and, more significantly, they brought a subtle floor change, as shown below. This triangular-shaped extension that reduces the volume of the rear diffuser is there to “improve pressure gradients”. This may be a snooze fest for you, but suffice it to say, this new triangle piece glued to the underside is supposed to help with the pesky balance issues.

These upgrades seem to have put the team on the path to recovery for the remaining races. Verstappen thinks the changes made to the car have been positive and that the team could be onto something big. But this is more of a short-term band-aid solution. The team is expected to have an all-new floor available for the United States Grand Prix.

The second point from our RB investigation brings us to the type of circuit that Baku is. The Azerbaijan GP circuit is a street circuit with the longest straight on the calendar, followed by narrow, tight street-based geometry. It’s this “street” part that seems to have given the Red Bull car the advantage because you only have to set up a car for one type of corner. This circuit is basically a heap of 90-degree corners mixed with a couple of type windy bits through the castle section that all slow the car down to a workable speed that doesn’t require huge downforce.

So, the Austrian team could set the car up for these tight corners and let the power unit/DRS do the remainder of the work on the straights. Since Red Bull has been struggling with setting up a car for a circuit with a diverse stable of corners like Spa, Zandvoort, and Hungary, the street circuits seem to have given them a little technical break.

These two points mean that Red Bull may have another impressive showing in Singapore but could start to fall off again, starting at the USGP in Austin, TX.

💨 Hot Laps

Christian Horner makes his feelings known about the Aston Martin-Newey announcement.

Colapinto is coming into his own as he fills Logan Sargeant’s shoes for the remainder of 2024.

Verstappen explains the issue he was having with the rear axle during the race due to ‘setup changes’

Red Bull will follow McLaren and Mercedes and build a front wing that passes static load tests but flexes when needed.

Norris holds off Checo to help Piastri pit and come out ahead of the Baku favorite. This arguably won the race for Piastri.

🛞Marbles

Random links from the authors not always car related

✅Read: This coming-of-age story is told by a girl who spent her teenage years in fallen Saigon at the end of the Vietnam War.

✅Skip: The long, meandering scroll for something to watch, just follow this list.

✅Eat: The CDC declared this vegetable the best vegetable.

✅Misnomer: Here is a list of the world’s most mispronounced first names. Is yours on it?

🤯Brain Food

When was the last time McLaren won the Constructor’s championship?

📖Answer

1998

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