Adam Cooper F1

Max Verstappen admits that he “paid the price” for a wrong set-up decision heading into qualifying for the Azerbaijan GP that could not be reversed for the race.

The Dutchman was much happier with the car after a floor update was fast tracked for Baku, but an attempt to optimise it for qualifying went the wrong way.

Unable to make any changes after qualifying he complained during the race of having zero bite, brake issues, jumping, and a lack of rear grip.

He eventually finished fifth, gaining two places from the penultimate lap crash that eliminated team mate Sergio Perez and Carlos Sainz.

“I think we just paid the price with the change that we made into qualifying that made it just really difficult to drive,” he said when asked by this writer about his race.

“The car was jumping around a lot, the wheels were coming off the ground in the low-speed corners. When you don’t have the contact patch with the tarmac it’s very difficult.”

Asked if the setup change was his choice he said: “Yeah, our side. I mean you win and lose as a team. We thought it would be a good direction to go in. At the end, it wasn’t.”

Verstappen downplayed the suggestion that the race represented a wasted opportunity to extend his lead over Norris, who climbed from 15^th on the grid to fourth, passing the Red Bull driver in the process.

“Yeah, it is,” he said. “But you can also turn it around. I think they could have done a better job as well, right? So it is what it is.

“I think we learned a lot. The car I think that did feel a bit better than what we had before, because then with the setup, maybe we went the wrong way, and we’ll try to do better.

“I mean, if you look at my race, also probably everything just was the worst-case scenario, my general balance, of course, that I had, then being stuck behind Alex and Lando.”

Regarding his chances of staying ahead of Norris he said: “I think if we do a better job ourselves, they need to have a perfect end to the year.”

Verstappen agreed that his cause might be help by so many drivers being in contention and potentially taking points off the McLaren man.

“In a way, yeah, but I don’t like to of course always be P6 myself!,” he said. “We need to do a bit better. But I think today already showed that for example, with Checo, when he was a bit happier, the car was performing a bit better. We are in that fight.

“Okay, maybe we didn’t win, but we were in that fight with Checo. So I think from now onwards, we can be in that fight constantly if we keep improving the car step-by-step a little bit after our findings in Monza.”

Verstappen was one of four drivers to be called to the FIA stewards for overtaking after the chequered flag, but while the VSC was still active. All escaped with a warning.

“I did everything correct,” he said. “Cross the finish line, all good, chequered flag. I think on the in-lap, end of the race, there are many examples before where it was the same, virtual safety car or safety car, you drive in and on the in-lap, people are passing each other slowly, or waving well done, stuff like that. That’s what I did. So I’m a bit surprised.”

Sergio Perez says he was left “super frustrated” by the accident with Carlos Sainz that took both men out of the Azerbaijan GP on the penultimate lap.

They were racing each other for third place in the slipstream of Charles Leclerc when they touched on the run out of Turn 2, which led to hard contact with the wall on the left.

The stewards looked into the incident and opted to take no further action on either driver after determining that neither was predominantly to blame.

“I’m super frustrated that we both ended up our weekends like that for our teams,” he said when asked by this writer about the incident.

“And it’s just a shame, because when we exited Turn 2, there was a metre between the cars, and then within a metre or two, we ended up making contact.

“Obviously I understand what Carlos was trying to do, to follow Charles’s tow, but I was there, and it all happened very quickly. As he was having more speed the way he moved meant that he touched my front right tyre quite quickly.”

He added: “Basically at the time, I just felt like he didn’t realise that I was there. And like I say, what disappoints me the more is that we exited Turn 2 with a metre between the cars, and we still within two metres end up making contact.

“It’s a shame, because Carlos is definitely the last guy I want to have an incident with. It’s just a shame that we both ruined our weekends.”

Perez was competitive all weekend in Baku, and might even have had a shot at victory had he not faced a sturdy defence from Lando Norris, who helped to give Oscar Piastri the advantage to stay ahead.

“I think lost two seconds with Lando holding me back, two and a half seconds,” he said. “And that really prevented me to do the undercut on Piastri.

“I think being on the dirty air with the low grip was not ideal. So I think I would have had a much better race, definitely. We had the pace for the win today.”

A good result would have been timely for the Mexican after what has been a disappointing season to date.

“Yeah, it’s a massive frustration,” he said. “It makes me feel super sad for my team, McLaren overtook us in the championship.

“But the positive thing is that the pace is back. I think with the upgrades we brought have brought us in contention, and that’s something we can be happy with.

“That’s definitely encouragement. But I’m aware that there’s still a lot of work to do, because when you see with Max, how much he struggled on the weekend, I think he probably was a touch or two out of the setup, and then it’s a huge difference in terms of weekend.

“So it keeps showing that the car is too sensitive. So we’ve got some work to do. I think we’ve done a good step, but we need another two steps like this.”

Hamilton thinks switching floors is a “good test”

Lewis Hamilton says that returning to an older W15 floor spec for the Azerbaijan GP weekend was “a good test” for his Mercedes Formula 1 team.

The newer floor was first seen in practice at Spa. However it was then taken off. George Russell and Hamilton duly finished the race first and second with the earlier floor, with the seven-times World Champion inheriting the win after his team mate was disqualified.

The new floor was used again at Zandvoort and Monza, with inconclusive results.

For Azerbaijan the team opted to return once more to the earlier version last raced in Belgium, and Hamilton was happy with it on Friday.

On Saturday Russell qualified fifth, with a frustrated Hamilton earning seventh after struggling to get his tyres into the optimum window.

The team subsequently decided to take a new PU and start him from the pitlane – which will also allow him to make setup changes that could improve the car in the race.

“P1 and p2 car felt amazing,” he said when asked by this writer about his progress. “And I was really on it from literally from lap one, competing at the front. Sometimes you wonder, when you get to a Saturday, whether the others were heavier on P1 and P2.

“But as I said, it felt great yesterday, and then as soon as we started today, I barely changed anything to the car because I didn’t want to mess anything up.

“And the tyres wouldn’t work all day, they’ve not worked. I think the last lap, the last sector, the tyres just started to work. We missed it earlier.”

Regarding the choice of the older floor he said:  “I think very, very similar between the new one and the old one. So I think it was a good test for us to go back.

“We won on this floor before. It’s a bit older, so it’s a little bit heavier compared to a new floor. But I think it’s a good floor.”

However he stopped short of confirming that the newer version was key to the team’s recent struggles.

“We haven’t back-to-backed this weekend,” he noted. “So it’s difficult to say that that was the problem, because we’re in the same position we were in the last race.

“As I said, there’s not a big difference between the two, but the car was feeling great yesterday, it wasn’t today.”

Hamilton is cautious about prospects for what will be a tyre management race.

“We weren’t good last the last couple years, or at least the last year, with rear deg,” he said. “We will try to be better tomorrow, for sure. I really, really can’t say. I hope we’re stronger, but find out when we get to the race.”

Alonso believes he’ll have an advantage in race trim

Fernando Alonso is confident that Aston Martin’s choice of a low downforce spec for Baku will be provide an advantage in Sunday’s race.

Alonso, who qualified eighth and best of the rest behind the cars from the top four teams, says that a similar strategy worked well in 2023, when he qualified sixth and finished fourth.

He believes that it will help himself and team mate Lance Stroll in racing situations, although more sliding will be detrimental to the tyres.

“Definitely, we have less downforce than the others,” he said. “It’s a strategy that we think can help us into the race.

“We followed that direction also last year, to be fast on the last sector. It helped you to defend, and it helped you to attack. If there are any restarts, you have that also extra speed when you go on power.

“So, yeah, let’s see. Obviously, you have a penalty on the tyre deg, we will struggle more with the tyre deg, but it’s the way we think is the best thing for tomorrow.”

Alonso had an unusual qualifying session. Having struggled in Q1 and scraped through in P15 he was then fifth in Q2 having found more grip, before taking eighth in the final session.

“We went into qualifying with a very open mind in terms of how fast we can be, because it has been a little bit difficult to read the times until now,” he said. “But with no confidence in the car. We cannot hide the fact that we were struggling with the car the whole weekend.

“This circuit with extremely low grip we found this year, same for everybody, like three seconds every session slower than last year, plus the low downforce nature of the track, if you don’t have the confidence in the car, it becomes a very tough weekend. And we don’t have that confidence in the car that we lost a few weekends ago.

“So yeah, it was tricky. I was P15 in Q1, which was very worrying, and I was pessimistic into Q2 but then in Q2 we were P5. so yeah, we made a bigger step in terms of performance.”

Aston has reverted to an older floor spec this weekend, although Alonso was cagey on the results of the experiment.

“Until the Q2 lap, the older floor was not giving us anything very, very different than what we’ve been doing the last few weekends,” he said. “So, yeah, I think it’s difficult to tell, but we gave more data to the team to keep understanding the car.”