F1 in Azerbaijan: That was almost a close-run thing

Formula 1 raced on the streets of Baku, Azerbaijan, this past weekend. Although the race predates Liberty’s acquisition of the sport by a few months, it’s a rather good microcosm of the sport as it exists today. The track is a real challenge; it takes place on dusty city streets lined with concrete walls and through a medieval fortress gate, followed by a 1.4-mile (2.2 km) flat-out blast to the finish line, with gusts of wind from the Caspian Sea a block away. It’s interesting to look at Baku’s mix of modern and classical architecture sharing the stage with a massive hospitality and pit lane complex. And since it wouldn’t be F1 without some controversy, this year the race was held a day earlier than normal after F1 switched up its schedule to avoid clashing with Azerbaijan’s celebration of its recent war with Armenia—it’s almost as if Bernie Ecclestone had never left.

The proximity of the walls leaves very little margin for error at the speeds F1 cars go around Baku. Last year, qualifying was interrupted by no less than six red flags after crashes. This year was much less dramatic, unless you were championship leader Kimi Antonelli. The 20-year-old sophomore misjudged how much front grip he had going into turn 1, found more than expected, and clipped the corner of the wall with his left front tire. It happened in the first of the three knockout qualifying sessions, and while Antonelli had already banked a time good enough to proceed to the next session, the damage to his car meant he would take no further part and start the race from 16th.

A few weeks ago, at Monza, penalties for a power unit change saw Antonelli start the race from even further back (19th), which he followed a day later with a spectacular drive through the field to take the win away from his teammate George Russell. But there was some luck involved then; two standing starts (the second following Leclerc’s big crash on lap 2) allowed him to pass a lot of cars quickly, for one thing. In Baku he would have a much tougher task.

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