To say that the 2017 Azerbaijan Grand Prix was unpredictable would be a massive understatement. Shunts, brake checking, collisions and come-from-behind wins, it had it all. One of F1’s newest ‘friendships’ – or so we thought – appears to have ended with a massive tussle between Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel. An 18-year-old dismissed as yet another pay-driver got good results – and a shoey, and Red Bull have absolutely declared they have a hat in this battle, too!
Here’s a look back at the biggest takeaways from the race:
Lance Stroll: Not just a pay driver
The son of a billionaire businessman, Canadian driver Lance Stroll of Williams was regarded so far as a pay driver. The 18-year-old came on as a replacement for Valtteri Bottas, who was bought by Mercedes after the retirement of 2016 Driver’s Champion Nico Rosberg.
Until now, many had dismissed the young Stroll – who had not so far shown any particularly outstanding racing acumen, as a ‘pay driver’ – one who is given a seat due to the money they bring to the team – as Pastor Maldonado till until a few years ago with team Lotus.
However, a pay driver does not have to be all bad – and some of the best drivers in the sport started out as pay drivers. Both Michael Schumacher and Fernando Alonso did so – as did, to the surprise of many, sporting icon Niki Lauda.
This weekend, the teen scored his first ever F1 podium spot – finishing third at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix!
Stroll drove a near-perfect race all weekend, and from finding it difficult to even control the car – in Australia earlier this year, the teenager has come a long way. There has been a definitive, and marked improvement – and no doubt that is bolstered by experienced teammate Felipe Massa and Team Principal Claire Williams. That alone can go a long way in converting a mediocre driver to a strong one.
Bottas is NOT Number 2!
I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again. With Rosberg having played second fiddle to Lewis Hamilton in all but name over his last few years with the Briton at Mercedes, many thought Bottas – a clean and quick driver himself, would also be the Number Two driver to the three-time champion. Hamilton has outdriven Bottas for the most part this year, and is still currently at No. 2 in the championship standings – breaking idol Ayrton Senna’s record along the way.
But with clean lines and some great overtaking, Valtteri Bottas was personally one of my drivers of the day from yesterday’s entirely chaotic race. The Finn was in nineteenth at the end of Lap 1 – and admittedly, red flags, safety cars, shunts and the like helped him – but to get onto the podium from there is no doubt an excellent drive.
Bottas also stayed diplomatic with a strange request from Hamilton to block Vettel – and staying in P3 until the final laps, when he grabbed past Stroll in a clean, cool-headed overtake to finish in second is just an example of his calm nature under fire – something that has been a feature of F1’s most famous Finns, most so the unflappable Mika Hakkinen.
Should team orders not come into play and Bottas is allowed raw, quick racing – even with his own teammate, I think the 27-year-old Bottas could really do well this year.
End of the Lewis – Sebastian Bromance?
With fights and sour relationships marring the sport over the last few years – barring the camaraderie shared by McLaren’s Fernando Alonso and former teammate Jenson Button, F1 needed a new bromance.
The relationship between childhood friends Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton also thawed significantly after the 2016 season – but 2017 saw a new one emerge – between the two biggest rivals on the circuit today, Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel of Ferrari.
The two have spoken several times this year on how much they respect the other, their driving, and despite the fact that the Briton is chasing Vettel in the championship standings, the pair appeared to have a healthy respect – and a fun friendship with each other, even laughing together on the podium on multiple occasions.
But this weekend looks like it has changed all that and in speedy fashion, no pun intended. The race saw three restarts, and it was following the first one that the pair clashed on the track. Vettel accused Hamilton of a brake test or a brake check, which is when a driver deliberately slows down to impede the race of the driver behind him. As a result, Vettel hit the back of Hamilton’s Mercedes.
Immediately after this, the German pulled up next to his Mercedes rival and gesticulated in anger, with his car going wide and sideswiping Hamilton’s.
Vettel was given three penalty points in addition to a 10 second stop-and-go penalty at the race for what marshals described as ‘dangerous driving’, but perhaps the harshest criticism came from Hamilton himself. The Briton called his now likely former friend a “disgrace, disgraceful driving.” He also called the German out on “unsportsmanlike conduct,” with Vettel choosing to avoid addressing the issue directly, but not particularly denying the news.
Even if you are a fan of Vettel and Ferrari, you would notice that the German did in fact appear to turn his wheel sideways to touch the car of his rival, but all the 29-year-old said after his penalty was “where did I do dangerous driving?”
Funnily enough, it was team Principal Maurizio Arrivabene who told him to “keep your head down, we (will) talk about this later.”
"I wasn't happy with the brake-testing. I drove alongside him and raised my hand to say that is not the way to do it and we had a little contact,” he said.
The two had some extremely terse looks exchanged after, and we think this has ended a hope for a great F1 friendship there.
With a championship fight in the balance, maybe this one was some time coming.
McHonda has points!
The otherwise rather unsuccessful combination of McLaren and Honda has had little to no results despite battles by the team’s drivers to keep going – especially Fernando Alonso, who even managed a P7 qualification this year. Understandably, the Spaniard, a two-time World Drivers’ Champion has been looking out for other options with the consistent DNFs the team has found.
With crashes, restarts and more in this race, the McLaren – with an otherwise significantly inferior engine, managed points, with Alonso finishing in P9 in the end. The 31-year-old did drive a very clean race, but would the points finish have happened without the crashes up the grid? We’re not entirely sure, and even then it was quite a close points finish in the end.
Alonso has said he is “open to options” for the new season and has made absolutely no bones of his displeasure with the failing engine he has been provided – with consistent engine issues also adding up to consistent grid penalties.
With his excellent finish at Indy earlier this year too, Alonso has his finger in a lot of pies – and if McLaren-Honda can’t deliver on their promises to the driver, that will be a big problem for them.
Renault: Time for an overhaul?
Despite the chaos of the Azerbaijan GP – with points for nearly all mid – level teams, legacy team Renault were the only ones to not finish in the points. Hulkenberg crashed into the wall to end his race, while Jolyon Palmer – who has had consistently bad results all year, saw smoke billowing out of his car.
Unlucky DNFs for both – but Hulkenberg has raced better all year, and indeed is the more qualified driver of the two, doing well with Force India in the previous season. Palmer, on the other hand, has seen his seat under scrutiny for a while, with Renault boss Cyril Abiteboul saying he will need to “perform or leave.”
Simple directions there, really. And still very, very dire. Palmer’s security there is not really helped along by the return of talented driver Robert Kubica, who was in his heyday widely tipped to be a future champion. Still only 32, Kubica saw his F1 career ended abruptly in 2011 after a massive shunt in rally racing where he nearly severed his arm.
Kubica has had historical ties to Renault even before his F1 stint, with the team part of even his junior career. This year, the Polish driver has run several tests – and over a hundred laps – in a Formula One car and significantly described himself as “ready” to race in an F1 cockpit – something his injuries prevented him from doing until now.
With Kubica’s speed and talent – and now that he has returned to racing fitness, Palmer’s seat could well be in jeopardy, and it’s not hard to see why. With Alain Prost for a team principal, a decent engine and a good teammate, Kubica himself would flourish here. Could that be a possibility? I think so.
