Photo credit to F1.com
Lights Out
What a start it was for the front runners with Lewis Hamilton, Valteri Bottas, Kimi Raikkonen and Sebastian Vettel making it through turn 1 safely. The two Toro Rosso’s had a horrible start as Kyvat ran wide in turn 1. Sainz who was minding his own business into turn 1 saw his teammate trying to recover and enter the track again. He was shocked that he saw his teammate approaching him quickly and spun his car. Sainz had lost control.
In turn 2 Bottas battled it out with Raikkonen. They both went wheel-to-wheel with each other into turn 2. Bottas(who was in the inside line) hit the kerb and lost control. From the impact, Bottas hit Raikkonen’s car. Bottas had bad damage on his front wing and sidepod. He was significantly slower than the field and soon found himself in last place. Kimi had damage too but managed to continue the race.
Max Verstappen who was in 5th saw the opportunity to overtake Raikkonen into turn 3 and overtook him quickly. Bottas pitted for a new front wing and Ricciardo pitted as he had debris in his brake scheme. Riccardo quickly flew past the field with his fresh tyes. On lap 10 Kyvat stopped his car in a dangerous position on the side of the truck as he had a problem. The next lap Verstappen had an engine failure and after an amazing start he was forced to retire.
On lap 11 the safety car was bought out as marshals were still removing Kyvat’s car. Most of the drivers used this opportunity to pit for fresh tyres. When the safety was still on the track Lewis was infront of Vettel. The driver who is in the lead when there is a safety car (in this situation Hamilton) is allowed to control the speed of the race. Vettel who was pushing to fast behind Hamilton hit him from behind. Vettel blamed Hamilton for brake testing him (which Lewis did not do as FIA data states). Vettel pulled up next to Hamilton and purposely smashed into him Setting a bad example to younger catogries and fans watching.
After that small incident the safety drove away and the cars started to race again. Lewis got off to a good start while Vettel had a piece of debris fly of his car (due to the incident with Hamilton). Vettel was under presssure from Perez and behind him Massa and Ocon. Perez pulled up next to Vettel on the left and Massa pulled up on the right. Vettel was sandwiched. Into turn 1 Vettel kept his position with Massa following behind him. Into turn 2 Ocon was wheel-to-wheel with his teammate, Perez. Ocon uncautiously dived down the inside of Prez and both Force-India’s smashed each other. Both of them picked up horrible damage and left behind huge amounts of their front wings on the track.
Due to the huge amount of debris all over the track the session was red-flagged. All the drivers drove back into the pits in the order that they are. When the race restarted it was lap 23. Third place Massa was under pressure from his teammate Lance Stroll who was under pressure from Ricciardo. Ricciardo dived down the inside into turn 1 and overtook both the Williams. He was now in 3rd place. Lance Stroll managed to overtake Massa too.
Massa had a bad car vibration and was overtaken by many cars. He was forced to retire the race. This brought Hulkenberg up to into 5th place. Unfortunately Hulkenberg hit the wall in the same lap and had a tyre facing the wrong direction. He drove to the escape road and retired. So Magnussen moved up to 5th. Lewis who was in the lead had a unsecured head rest. It was popping up and was dangerous. He had to unfortunately give up his lead to enter the pit for a new headrest.
This meant that Vettel was the leader of the race but after a few seconds Vettel was given a 10 second stop and go penalty for smashing into Hamilton under the safety car. So guess what? The lead was then handed to Ricciardo. While all of that was going on Bottas managed to get up to 8th position after a disastrous start. Vettel after he took his penalty exited the pit infront of Hamilton but behind Bottas.
Ocon who was in the final podium position was overtaken by Bottas. After what happened at the back nobody paid attention to Lance Stroll who was in 2nd place. After just 7 races in F1 he found himself in p2. There was one problem though and that was because Bottas was closing the gap to Lance significantly. Lance and Ricciardo were told to pick up the pace by their engineers but Lance’s lap times were no match to Bottas’.
With 10 laps remaining Lewis asked his engineer if Bottas could back Vettel into Lewis so that he could have a chance. Lewis was the told that Bottas was on a charge for second place and had to get ready to settle for 5th.
Down the main straight went Daniel Ricciardo to win at Baku for the first time. Behind it was a bigger story as Bottas managed to catch Stroll at the final second. Lance Stroll was disappointed but should be proud that he had just finished on the podium. Vettel finished the race infront of Hamilton opening the Championship gap to 14 points.