Official 2021 Azerbaijan Grand Prix Thread ***SPOILERS***

[Piginapoke]

Round 6 and we’re in Baku for the Azerbaijan GP, another race that we missed last year. Monaco wasn’t the best but it really set the championship up nicely. Ricciardo needs to be on the pace of Norris this weekend, it will be interesting to see if Vettel can keep up the improvement.

Let’s hope it doesn’t all get legal over the flexi wings. Another Max and Red Bull win for me.

Date(s): Friday 3 June - Sunday 6 June 2021.

UK Broadcast Timings (and local time)

All sessions are live on Sky F1; Channel 4 showing highlights of Race and Qualifying:





Live timing for all sessions available here:

https://www.formula1.com/en/f1-live.html

Lap times, PU component use, technical reports and Stewards' decisions for the weekend will appear here:

https://www.fia.com/events/fia-formula-one-world-c...

Weather forecast:
https://weather.com/en-GB/weather/today/l/40.39,49...

Tyre options:

Teams have two hard, three mediums and eight soft sets available per driver for each weekend.



2020 race result:

N/A

2019 race highlights:

https://youtu.be/8eE9bofwhhs

[Piginapoke]

TheLimla said:

Going to be another painful weekend for Lewis and Mercedes it seems...

That car is just so slow to get heat into its tyres it seems.

[Piginapoke]

cuprabob said:

DanielSan said:

Toto refusing to talk to the media after P2.

Maybe he is just reinforcing Lewis' support of Naomi Osaka

I think he's taking the P2 result to the International Court of Appeal.

[Piginapoke]

jimPH said:

Piginapoke said:

TheLimla said:

Going to be another painful weekend for Lewis and Mercedes it seems...

That car is just so slow to get heat into its tyres it seems.

DAS must have been quite an advantage last year

It's true, and I think the floor changes hurt Merc more than most.

[Piginapoke]

aston80 said:

Piginapoke said:

TheLimla said:

Going to be another painful weekend for Lewis and Mercedes it seems...

That car is just so slow to get heat into its tyres it seems.

What does this actually mean? Not enough downforce?

It’s a result of downforce and suspension design, the benefit is that it’s tyres typically last longer , like in Spain. Mercedes had DAS last year to compensate, but no more.

[Piginapoke]

Man-At-Arms said:

ggdrew said:

BUT Im conflicted because how can a race result stand when the winning cars are illegal under the regs? Its a mockery!

But as always in F1, the rules at the beginning of the season are ambiguous.
The teams exploit them and find loopholes to their advantage.

It’s only when the FIA realise how far the rules were bent (not broken), that they then start to make mid-season amendments.

Lotus - active downforce (1978)
Williams - active suspension (1989)
Brawn - double deck diffuser (2009)
RedBull - off throttle blown diffuser (2011)
Ferrari - fuel flow meter (2019)
Mercedes - dual axis steering (2020)

I’m sure there loads more I haven’t mentioned……

There are loads- it's one of the most interesting aspects of F1. It's certainly not cheating. A few more from me:

F Ducts
X Wings
Brabham Fan Car
McLaren fiddle brake
Williams 6 wheeled cars
Blown diffusers
Renault Mass Damper

[Piginapoke]

They are just running out of sync, did soft runs early.

[Piginapoke]

I’m starting to think Merc are in real bother.

[Piginapoke]

Schermerhorn said:

Red Bull are looking very strong

They were dominant in Monaco and now a power circuit like Baku; two very different tracks with very different requirements.

The mechanical grip and engine power of that Red Bull is seriously mighty.

Not so different- no fast corners at all in Baku. Silverstone will be a real yardstick.

A brilliant GP, just seen on Sky catch up, Hard on Verstappen, he should watch Mansell in Adelaide 86 to keep things in perspective. Great job from Perez, this is the exact job RB hired him to do.

But do we know what happened to Bottas? Also, a surprising mistake from a 7 times WDC- the 2nd mistake in 6 GP.

[Piginapoke]

rdjohn said:

resolve10 said:

How are people coming to the conclusion that Lewis would have driven off into the distance if he'd kept it on the track after the restart? The Red Bull had more pace all day through sector 2 which would have put Perez right on Lewis' tail going into the long straight, Perez could well have got back past him. Gasly and Leclerc swapped positions about 4 times in one lap!

It was good for the overall season that Lewis finished pointless but for the race it would have been interesting to see how the battle would have played out.

I watched on C4 and CH said that Checo had a hydraulics issue, i suspect that Lewis did lose the win.

Anyone know what the odds of choosing the podium would have been?

At the restart it looked like Lewis’s rear brakes were on fire have any comments on that possibility been mentioned?

Very entertaining race.

It was Lewis' front brakes that were smoking I think, thanks to his use of the Magic Button or whatever it's called, shifting brake bias to the front.

I don't know what odds you would have got on that podium, or indeed on Lewis making more significant mistakes than Max after 6 races....

[Piginapoke]

TheDeuce said:

jsf said:

SmoothCriminal said:

TheDeuce said:

jsf said:

I can form an opinion after one race.

There were overtakes before the DRS was enabled in this race.

Not between the two top cars there weren't..

And yes, you can form an opinion as prematurely as you wish

Pretty sure Hamilton (2nd) overtook Charles (1st) before drs was enabled.

He did.

And that means that the two top cars of the race, RB and Merc could manage the same? No way was the RB getting past the Merc on the straight without DRS. You actually disagree?

It depends on what you mean Deuce. Lewis had chosen the skinny wing, so was very quick on the straights but this meant his car ate its tyres, compared to the Red Bull, so over a stint the RB would have overtaken no problem (much the same as when overtaking Leclerc). But if you mean the last two laps, it would have been very tricky for Perez to overtake, I don't think he would have managed it personally.

[Piginapoke]

What a picture!

[Piginapoke]

This is all true, but a competitive tyre/tyre war would immediately take seconds off the lap times of the cars, when many circuits are struggling to contain the speeds already. I think FIA are glad the tyres are slowing the case down!

[Piginapoke]

Mr Pointy said:

TheDeuce said:

The only downside is that across such a varying array of circuits each season, it's highly likely that every now and again such contrived tyres are simply not going to be good enough. (edited)

I do think it's a bit odd that many people (not necessarily you) are assuming that just because there were two incidents that there was an issue with the tyres in Baku & that the failures weren't caused by debris. Given that both failures were rear left & hence both ocurrred on the lesser loaded tyre it's far more likely that there was a specific track issue causing tyre damage, especially given that exactly the same tyre on Hamilton's car had visible damage.

If the most highly stressed tyre had failed in both cases then yes, you might think that the tyre had failed but it's way less likley that the lower stressed tyre would give up in both cases. Plenty of other drivers did more laps on their tyres without issue.

Both LR tyres failed right after turn 8, a 180mph RH corner and peak load for the tyres. Both failed between 30 and 39 laps, so there is some reason to think it may not be debris.