Bottas brilliant in Baku for the win, Hamilton P2 to extend Mercedes mastery; Vettel P3 for frustrated Ferrari

Valtteri Bottas entered the 2019 season vowing to be less of a wingman to his peerless 5-time World Champion teammate Lewis Hamilton and more of a threat to him for the title. So far in this young season Bottas has made good on his promise. After pipping Hamilton for pole position, Bottas was able to hold off the hard charging Hamilton on the opening lap of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix on Sunday at the alternately wide and tight Baku City Street circuit. It was something the Finn was unable to do in China two weeks ago but this time he kept his elbows out in a respectful but forceful manner and kept Hamilton behind him. Following that crucial first lap, the pace of Bottas’ Mercedes was untouchable by the rest of the field, including his elite teammate. Bottas was able to pull away and manage the race from the front, surviving some tricky tire strategy, as well as Hamilton’s best efforts, to eventually romp to the win by a healthy 1.5 seconds. That avenged Bottas’ heartbreaking loss here last year when a late lap puncture denied him certain victory and he now has two wins to bookend Hamilton’s own brace. Bottas leads the Englishman by a single point in the Driver’s standings, which he scored by taking fastest lap in Melbourne along with the victory there. The race in Azerbaijan, Round 4 of the Championship, also highlighted a dominant start by team Mercedes and marked their fourth consecutive 1-2 finish to start the year.

That is bad news for Ferrari and fans of the fabled Scuderia. After all the talk of the Prancing Horses having the pace advantage over the Silver Arrows, Ferrari has yet to prove that in a race this year. Mercedes appears able to turn up the performance without sacrificing reliability and they have two drivers who almost never make mistakes. Both those shortcomings bit Ferrari in Baku. Wile looking like the fastest overall during each round of practice, Ferrari’s young phenom Charles Leclerc binned his car into the TecPro barriers at the tricky Castle complex during Saturday qualifying. Yeoman’s work by the team’s mechanics enabled Leclerc to start with a healthy car on the grid on Sunday and he was elevated to P8 by the time the race started due to others’ penalties. But it was a far cry from a possible pole and put the Monegasque on an alternate tire strategy from the rest of the frontrunners, with Leclerc’s Prancing Horse starting on the Medium Pirelli’s while the other top 10 began on the softs. So Leclerc would obviously run a longer first stint and for a while it looked like the alternate strategy just might pay off with unexpectedly good results, as the Soft rubber of those around him expired much more quickly than expected.

Pics courtesy GrandPrix247.com

Leclerc made a passel of passes through the midfield to get to P5 by Lap 7 and by the time Hamilton finished off the round of pit stops for the top 3 on Lap 14 Leclerc inherited the race lead. But Ferrari may have gotten greedy — they were also understandably worried about the life of the Soft tires to close the race to be fair — and kept Leclerc out on that first set of Medium tires all the way to Lap 34. After finally pitting, Leclerc rejoined in P6 behind Red Bull’s Pierre Gasly, who himself had not stopped for fresh rubber after starting from the pit lane. Leclerc passed Gasly for P5 and then the Red Bull’s gearbox promptly failed, necessitating a Virtual Safety Car to clear Gasly’s car from the circuit and lasting until Lap 41. That probably cost not just Leclerc but also Gasly’s teammate Max Verstappen, who both had to sacrifice key laps at VSC pace and then struggled to reanimate their tires in cooling conditions for the waning laps of the contest. Verstappen came home to finish fourth, Leclerc held station at P5 — he also scored the fastest lap bonus point after a late second stop for fresh Softs — and the other Ferrari of Sebastian Vettel took the last podium position in P3. Vettel had somewhat harassed Hamilton for a better finish bothe before and after the VSC but could never find a way by him. So no one in Maranello will be very pleased with another 3-5 finish, particularly not when Mercedes has swept the first four races at their expense.

Further down the order, Sergio Perez drove a brilliant race for Racing Point, which also had its best team result of the year so far. Perez made a terrific getaway from his P5 starting position getting by Verstappen and actually holding off the Dutchman for several laps. While the veteran Mexican had to bow to the inevitable he still made the very best of his Mercedes-powered car keeping it clean and earning a best-of-the-rest P6 finish. When teammate Lance Stroll crossed the line in P9 it marked a banner points day for the previously struggling team. Likewise, McLaren also performed well after having only one points finish previously, rookie Lando Norris’ P6 in Bahrain, to show for all their and Honda’s hard work in the off season. This time Norris finished P8 and was joined in the points by previously star crossed teammate Carlos Sainz, who bettered his young rival by one spot in P7. Alfa Romeo’s Kimi Raikkonen scored the last point in P10, a pretty decent result considering the veteran Finn was forced to start from the pit lane after his front wing failed a post-qualifying deflection test.

Missing out were team Haas, who had another underwhelming effort and struggled once again to turn on their tires, and Renault, which saw Daniel Ricciardo DNF after coming together with Toro Rosso’s Daniil Kvyat while both were trying to escape a runoff area, and Nico Hulkenberg who finished way back in P14. Williams were one again no where near competitive and would have finished dead last but for surviving the race, thus bettering four other cars that did not finish.

Top 10 finishers of the Azerbaijan GP:

Complete race results available via Formula1.com.

The next race is in two weeks time from Barcelona, Spain, the circuit that is most familiar to F1 drivers due to its use as the off-season test track. With the internecine battle between Bottas and Hamilton heating up at Mercedes and Ferrari desperate to start making a dent in Silver Arrows supremacy it should be another intriguing chapter in this titanic worldwide struggle. Hope to see you the  to find out how it all shakes out!