Oscar and McLaren, The Conquerors of the Streets of BAKU!

AZERBAIJAN GRAND PRIX 2024

Photo Credit: irishtimes.com

Oscar Piastri wins the Azerbaijan grand prix!!

With Oscar's win today the McLaren team are back to winning ways again after the disappointment of losing the win to Ferrari's Charles Leclerc at Monza. With this McLaren are leading the Constructor's Championship! This is the first time the Red Bull team has lost the lead of the Constructor's Championship in over two years. Also, this is the first time the McLaren team are leading the Constructor Championship since 2014 Australian Grand Prix. It shows the turn of form by both teams and how McLaren are excelling in their performance. This was also seen by Lando Norris's performance who fought all the way from P15 to come home and finish in P4 at the end. While doing so, he overtook his championship contender Red Bull's Max Verstappen, even though Max started in P6. A brilliant recovery drive by Lando after yesterday's disastrous qualifying.

The race was quite eventful with the Ferrari of Charles Leclerc starting on pole and his teammate in P3 which he lost to Sergio Perez on the opening lap of the race. Till the first round of pitstops Charles Leclerc looked like he was going to be the winner , stretching out over a 5 second lead. But after the pitstops Oscar Piastri was on his gearbox and overtook him on lap 20 after which Charles Leclerc could never regain the lead even though he was within DRS range of Piastri till lap 47 after which he hit the cliff of tyre performance and lost a lot of time and never overtook Piastri even after multiple attempts. A day to forget for Charles Leclerc who could not convert a fourth consecutive pole at Baku to a win.

With two laps to go Sergio Perez, the faster Red Bull throughout the weekend went to overtake Charles Leclerc down at turn 1, to which he defended superbly, which in turn let Carlos Sainz past through Perez and on the next DRS straight , after turn 2, Sainz and Perez collided with each other, ending up in the wall and ending each others race and chances of a podium . Due to this crash, lucky as always, George Russell inherited the P3 spot on the podium. 

Williams had a mighty race, one their best races in a long time with rookie Franco Colapinto finishing in P8 just behind his teammate, Alexander Albon in P7 earning the Williams teams the much needed 10 points in the Constructor's championship. It was a sublime drive by Franco considering it was only his second race start. Oliver Bearman also in his second outing in a F1 car scored a point for the Haas team, making him the first driver to score for two different constructors in his first two Grand Prix. A superb drive by him to beat his teammate Nico Hulkenberg. The Mercedes team today did not have the pace of the leading cars today yet they had a decent showing out on track today with Russell finishing in P3 and Hamilton in P9 after starting from the pit lane due to an engine change. The team inherited these positions due to the crash giving the team decent points yet a lot of things to work on. Both the Alpine's started at the back of the grid due to disqualification but fought their way up the field and finished in P12 and P15 not what the hoped for.

The Sauber team, the only team yet to score points were again the slowest of them all and showed no pace at all. Another disappointing weekend for them. Fernando Alonso had a good drive today, finishing in P6 and bringing the Aston Martin team 8 points mainly due to his pace and also the crash benefiting him. 

With the end of Round 17 of the Formula 1 calendar we head to Singapore next week where Ferrari will look to close down the gap to Red Bull in the Constructor's Championship which stands currently at 31 points or will Red Bull make a comeback next weekend on their ONLY WINLESS TRACK from last year, something to see while the drivers battle out under the lights and heat of SINGAPORE.