2024 Azerbaijan GP
Results
Race
George Russell
1:46.628 Fastest Lap
51 Laps
3rd
Lewis Hamilton
1:47.236 Fastest Lap
51 Laps
9th
Qualifying
George Russell
1:41.874 Fastest Lap
20 Laps
5th
Lewis Hamilton
1:42.289 Fastest Lap
22 Laps
7th
The first stop in the final double-header of the 2024 Formula One season was the Azerbaijan Grand Prix in Baku.
The 17th round of the season once again saw a spectacular race to the chequered flag, with Oscar Piastri winning a four-way battle at the front to take his second Grand Prix win ahead of Charles Leclerc.
In a spectacular final phase, four drivers battled for the top positions until Carlos Sainz and Sergio Perez collided in the fight for P3 and retired. The beneficiary of the accident was George, who moved up two places as a result of the crash and finished third on the podium.
Lewis had a difficult race as he had to start from the pit lane after changing the Power Unit. He also benefited from the chaos on the final laps to finish ninth and take two points.
After a difficult qualifying session, George started the race from P5 on the Baku City Circuit. Lewis had qualified in P7, but started from the pit lane because the team introduced a new power unit into his pool, as he had lost one earlier in the year in Australia.
The idea was that Lewis would be able to work his way up through the field with good top speed on the straights and his general pace.
Our duo had a new set of Hard and Medium tyres for the race. Both also had one set of used Mediums and three sets of used Softs. Red Bull, Ferrari and McLaren were on a different tyre strategy and each had two new sets of Hard compound tyres and only one new set of Medium tyres.
Both George and Lewis started on fresh Medium tyres. Alex Albon in the Williams was the only driver in the top 10 to start on Hard tyres. At the back of the field, Daniel Ricciardo, Lando Norris, Zhou Guanyu, Pierre Gasly and Esteban Ocon started on Hard tyres.
While Lewis chased the field and made up three positions on the opening lap, George lost a place at the start to Max Verstappen. After the first of 51 laps, George was P6 and Lewis was P17.
In the following laps, Lewis also overtook Valtteri Bottas and Yuki Tsunoda. After 10 laps, he was P15 behind Pierre Gasly, who was running on Hard tyres and Lewis was unable to overtake him.
Meanwhile, George was closing in on Verstappen, but had to be careful not to use up his tyres too quickly. In the following laps, Verstappen was able to extend his gap again, while George had an equal advantage of almost four seconds over Fernando Alonso.
On lap 13, Verstappen and George pitted at the same time, and Lewis pitted on the same lap. All three switched from the Medium to the Hard compound. The order remained unchanged: Verstappen ahead of Russell and Alonso, who had stopped earlier.
By the time most of the drivers had completed their pit stops, George was five seconds behind Verstappen in P6. He was 10 seconds ahead of Alonso. Lewis was P14 behind Oliver Bearman.
With Verstappen stuck behind Norris, who had not yet stopped, George closed the gap to the Red Bull driver to within two seconds.
On lap 32, George was in Verstappen's DRS window and made his first attack, which went unrewarded. Two laps later, he attacked in Turn 1 and overtook the Red Bull to take P5.
Meanwhile, Lewis overtook Bearman in the Haas and set off in pursuit of Franco Colapinto in the Williams in P11.
Then came the chaos of the closing stages, with the Sainz-Perez accident and Nico Hülkenberg's puncture in the Haas, which saw George and Lewis finish third and ninth respectively.
From Baku it's straight on to the second stop of the double-header in Singapore. The Singapore Grand Prix night race will be held at the Marina Bay Street Circuit from 20-22 September.
George Russell
It was a really strange race today. It was very difficult on the Medium tyre in my first stint. I was over one second off the ultimate pace and finding it hard to control the rear tyre surface temperatures. On the Hard tyre in my second stint, the car felt brilliant. In the final 20 laps, I was lapping one second quicker than those at the very front. It is hard to work out exactly why this was and is a little frustrating.
We were fortunate to get onto the podium and I am glad that both Carlos (Sainz) and Checo (Perez) are OK. We were having a relatively quiet run to P5 after I got past Verstappen, but we will take it. It is a good reward for all the efforts of the team after a challenging weekend on the whole.
Lewis Hamilton
Today was a difficult race. We had a good day on Friday, but the rest of the weekend was tough. We made some changes heading into Saturday that didn’t work out, but we had to live with them. We also knew it would be challenging to overtake today. Despite the long straight, it is hard to follow through the second sector. Franco Colapinto and Oliver Bearman, who I was racing for a lot of the afternoon, did such a great job. It is great to see the youngsters like them coming through and doing so well. For their first and second races, it was very impressive.
Despite how tough my own race was, the positives are that George had a decent race and was able to score some good points for the team. We’ve also got lots of data to work through ahead of Singapore. We’ve got some upgrades coming before the end of the year so hopefully we can make a step closer to those at the front soon.
Toto Wolff, Team Principal & CEO
We will take the positive from today that we were able to get one car on the podium. We saw that it was getting feisty at the front and that ultimately ended with Sainz and Perez in the wall. Inheriting a podium and finishing third is better than we expected but we are not fooling ourselves that, on pace today, we were P5.
We will analyse the race and weekend as a whole. The second half of our Grand Prix on the Hard tyre was encouraging. George was able to keep the temperatures under control and, having driven within himself early in the stint, was able to deliver strong pace in the closing stages. It was more difficult for Lewis with the traffic he faced but at moments, he showed good speed. We now head to Singapore, and it is another difficult circuit to know how everyone will perform. We will dig through the data from this weekend, aim to improve the car balance and have a stronger weekend there.
Andrew Shovlin, Trackside Engineering Director
It was nice to get a car on the podium, but we aren’t fooling ourselves; this weekend hasn’t been good enough and we need to improve. The first stint for both drivers was weak. We couldn't stop the rear tyres from overheating, and, at one point, it was looking like we were in for a very difficult afternoon.
The Hard tyre suited us much better. George had clean air to work out how to get the best out of the tyres and maintain them in a good window. That served him well later in the race. We'd lost too much time early on in the race to stick with the leaders, but it was good to get the pass on Verstappen done and that proved crucial for the podium.
Lewis' race was difficult as he kept bumping into DRS trains and just couldn't make it through them. The closer he got to the cars ahead the more tyre overheating he suffered with. Regardless, we were not strong enough here to get a podium on merit and that's what we need to put our efforts into resolving. We've got a different challenge in Singapore next week but are looking forward to getting back on track.
2024 Azerbaijan GP Result
1 | Oscar Piastri | McLaren | |
2 | Charles Leclerc | Ferrari | +10.910 |
3 | George Russell | Mercedes-AMG | +31.328 |
4 | Lando Norris | McLaren | +36.143 |
5 | Max Verstappen | Red Bull | +1:17.098 |
6 | Fernando Alonso | Aston Martin | +1:25.468 |
7 | Alexander Albon | Williams | +1:27.396 |
8 | Franco Colapinto | Williams | +1:29.541 |
9 | Lewis Hamilton | Mercedes-AMG | +1:32.401 |
10 | Oliver Bearman | Haas | +1:33.127 |
11 | Nico Hülkenberg | Haas | +1:33.465 |
12 | Pierre Gasly | Alpine | +1:57.189 |
13 | Daniel Ricciardo | Racing Bulls | +2:26.907 |
14 | Zhou Guanyu | Sauber | +2:28.841 |
15 | Esteban Ocon | Alpine | +1 Lap |
16 | Valtteri Bottas | Sauber | +1 Lap |
17 | Sergio Pérez | Red Bull | +2 Laps |
18 | Carlos Sainz | Ferrari | +2 Laps |
Lance Stroll | Aston Martin | DNF | |
Yuki Tsunoda | Racing Bulls | DNF |