Photo by Mark Thompson/Getty Images
Sergio Perez delivers another win for Red Bull in the Saturday sprint race in Azerbaijan
Another race, another dominant performance from Red Bull.
Sergio Perez wrestled P1 away from Charles Leclerc of Ferrari early in Saturday’s sprint race, and pulled away over the closing laps to claim victory in the sprint. Leclerc was able to hold off Max Verstappen for P2.
Still, Perez and the rest of the team know that tomorrow is the big target.
To get away with maximum points today was the objective, but we know tomorrow is the main race,” said Perez after his victory.
Here’s the classification for Saturday’s sprint race, and some observations from what we saw over the course of 17 laps.
Azerbaijan to remain on the grid
Saturday began with news regarding the Azerbaijan Grand Prix itself. F1 announced that the Azerbaijan Grand Prix would remain on the grid through the 2026 season, meaning drivers will be tested by the Baku City Circuit for at least three more years.
Tyre management was the big unknown going into the race
One of the differences between the 100km sprint race, and the Sunday Grand Prix, is the lack of a mandatory pit stop to change tyre compounds. Teams are free to run the entire race — all 17 laps — without coming in to change tyres.
There are obviously benefits to that, in that a team can avoid losing ground on the track on pit lane. However, there were critical unknowns heading into the sprint race on Saturday, Each race weekend Pirelli, the tyre supplier for F1, designates three different compounds as the soft, the medium ,and the hard for a given weekend. For Azerbaijan, Pirelli designated the C5, C4 and C3 compounds, the three softest available.
With just one practice session, and then a pair of qualifying sessions, teams did not have a lot of data available on how long tyres could last over an extended run. Would the soft compound last all 17 laps? Would starting on the mediums give each driver the chance to maintain. grip until the end, yet sacrifice their track position at the start of the race to drivers on the softs?
Would teams simply run on the softs, as F1TV analyst Sam Collins predicted prior to the sprint race, betting on at least one virtual safety car, or even a red flag, affording them the chance to make a pit stop?
Ultimately, when the teams ran off the grid only two drivers were on softs: Lando Norris and Valtteri Bottas. Every other team had the medium compound on their car.
The teams would be faced with an early decision point, as the right rear tyre came off Yuki Tsunoda’s AlphaTauri on the opening lap, and as the tyre rolled down the grid, a virtual safety car was deployed. Eventually the full safety car was deployed so the tyre could be collected and the debris cleared from the grid.
However, in the final laps of the race both Charles Leclerc and Valtteri Bottas seemed to be struggling with the medium tyres, which had run only ten or so true laps thanks to the safety cars that were deployed.
Something to watch for Sunday.
Early contact between Russell and Verstappen
At the start of the sprint, both George Russell and Max Verstappen pushed hard into the opening corners of Turn 2 and Turn 3. Russell pushed his Mercedes hard into the corner, nearly forcing Verstappen into the wall.
Russell was able to take the position and move into P3, but Verstappen was not happy at all. He radioed multiple times regarding the contact from Russell, hoping that Red Bull would report the incident to race officials and award him P3.
Then team officials radioed to the driver that Verstappen’s RB19 had picked up some floor damage. When Verstappen questioned how that happened, the reply was curt and to the point.
“How do you think?”
When the race restarted on Lap 6, Verstappen was able to wrestle that position back from Russell and push up into P3. Verstappen timed the restart to perfection, keeping behind Russell but gaining momentum along the left side of Russell, setting him up to overtake Russell as the cars entered Turn 1, the left-handed turn just after the start/finish line.
The contact did create a hole along the left side of Verstappen’s RB19, but even after he was able to retake the position and finish ahead of Russell in P3, the incident was on his mind.
The RB19 is so fast, especially when DRS is enabled
The RB19 has been the class of the field this season, both when DRS is enabled, and even without. But the difference between Red Bull and the other teams — in this example Ferrari — came shortly after the restart. Sergio Perez was chasing down pole sitter Charles Leclerc, and when the pair came out of Turn 16 and into the third sector, the moment Perez enabled DRS and opened that rear wing, he surged past Leclerc and into P1.
Then seconds later, Leclerc had his chance in the next DRS zone coming out of Turn 2. While he was able to close the gap to Perez, he could not complete the overtake.
Then over the closing laps, Perez was able to pull away for an impressive victory, while Leclerc could only hold on for P2.
The lesson for Sunday might be this: Leclerc was able to secure pole in large part to his strength through the twisting second sector. But the first and third sectors, with the longer straights and the only two DRS zones on the Baku City Circuit, could pose a problem for Leclerc as he looks to tangle with the Bulls in the Grand Prix.
Leclerc noted as much following his finish:
