How the New Sprint Format Bit in Baku

Solid points scored in Baku despite set-up challenges

We'd gone three weekends in a row without any Formula One action. So, it's fair to say the entire team was excited to be back racing. And we had an all-new Sprint weekend format to tackle in Baku.

With Qualifying on Friday evening, and a shorter version on Saturday setting the grid for the F1 Sprint, there was plenty of competitive track action to enjoy. The Sprint had moments of excitement, but as Toto described on Sunday evening, the main event itself "was not a thriller."

He continued: "I think it was good that we have done it and now we can go away and assess the impact, see if we need to make any tweaks to extract the best show."

Our drivers had mixed feelings. "I'm not against the format but there's some details that need changing and improving," George commented. Lewis, on the other hand, was more positive: "I like that we're trying something new with this format. The extra qualifying session was fun. The sprint race was less exciting but that's probably because I was struggling."

The biggest impact from our perspective was the lack of practice time, with just a solitary hour on track before Qualifying. With the need to condense work that is usually done in three hours into just one, the risks were high. Unfortunately, we struggled to get the car in the right set-up window and with little room for changes after that session, it made the rest of the weekend more challenging.

"I think when you look at the last few races, we've done a good job of improving the car across the course of the weekends," said George after the race. "And looking back at this weekend, the car wasn't in the perfect window. It's the same for everyone, with just one session, and it's a challenge but I think we got the set-up in the wrong place for where it needed to be."

How far from the perfect window were we? "Very far," conceded Toto. "We headed into a sub optimal set-up direction during FP1 and by the time we realised it was too late, and the car was in parc fermé conditions. It's the same for everyone though under this format."

That one hour therefore ultimately had a sizeable impact on how the rest of the weekend unfolded. That was not unexpected, but a valuable learning for when the sprint format makes its return in Austria.

Saturday's Sprint saw George and Lewis come home fourth and sixth respectively, banking the Team's first points of the weekend. Sunday's Grand Prix was trickier for our British duo.

Despite some bad luck around the early Safety Car period, which dropped him to 10^th, Lewis was upbeat having fought back with some strong overtakes to claim P6.

"The timing of the Safety Car wasn't ideal! I couldn't get bogged down in that frustration though. I had to keep my head down and get focused on attacking. That's what I did, and I got right back in the race," he said.

"There was some great prep before coming here, a couple of days in the factory, plenty of sim running so I'm really proud of the team," Lewis continued. "A big thank you to the factories, the mentality in the team is great. Everyone is so focused on progressing and getting to where we know we can get to. It's just taking some steps. This is a build to getting where we need to be."

For George, it was a race of mixed feelings, after making good progress on lap one and taking advantage of the Safety Car. Unfortunately, he lost positions on the restart and was then left looking at the gearbox of Lance Stroll's Aston Martin, finishing eighth. He did, however, score the fastest lap at the very end for an extra bonus point.

The frustration was clear at the end of the race. "I'm a little bit disappointed at myself today. I'll take the extra point for fastest lap but the only reason we had that opportunity was because we were in a bad position," he said. "The facts are, even if I was ahead of Fernando in P4, that is far from where we want to be, so we need to keep pushing."

Nevertheless, with the car we had for both the Sprint and the Grand Prix, we managed to score solid points. And the finishing positions were probably a fair reflection of the pace of the W14 in Baku.

Now we quickly look ahead to Miami, with just a few days before we're back on track. "Miami should be better, pace wise," Lewis said. "Last year we were bouncing there a lot and I think we are in a much better place with our car now. I hope we are a little closer to the front than here."