Oscar Piastri Wins In Baku, McLaren Take Constructor’s Championship Lead

Oscar Piastri won the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, securing a second victory in what are still the very early days of his Formula 1 career. McLaren’s Australian driver took the chequered flag ahead of Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) after the pair had duelled almost all race long. George Russell made it to the third step of the podium, the Mercedes driver inheriting the position after Carlos Sainz (Ferrari) and Sergio Perez (Red Bull) collided on the penultimate lap, causing the only neutralisation of the afternoon, the race ending under the Virtual Safety Car.

Piastri picked up 25 points today and Lando Norris brought home 13, which means McLaren now leads the Constructors’ Championship, the first time the Woking-based team has done so since the opening round of the 2014 season in Australia.

Oscar Piastri – P1

“P1! I’m so happy to have won my second Grand Prix. This is the best win of my career. I’m proud of what we did today. I tried at the start of the race to get in front, but once I dropped out of DRS, I just didn’t have the pace. After the stop, I saw we were pretty close again, and I felt like we had a little bit of extra grip. I had to go for it because I knew that if I didn’t get past at the start of the stint, I was never going to get past. So, I went for a pretty big lunge, but managed to pull it up, and then hung on for dear life for the next 35 laps. It was hard work, but I think that definitely goes down as one of my better races.

“We’re now leading the World Championship. It’s a massive team effort and everyone at McLaren deserves full credit for the turnaround that’s happened in my 18 months here. The car has improved, but I think they’ve helped me improve as well: 12 months ago, I definitely wasn’t capable of achieving results like this. I’m excited to see what the future holds.”

Charles Leclerc – P2

“We lost the victory based on two factors today. The first was tyre management on our out-lap from the pits. We expected it to take a long time for everyone to warm up their tyres, which was the case for our car, but not at all for McLaren, who got their tyres up to temperature immediately and gained a big amount of time there. The second was not fighting Oscar harder when he overtook. I knew we had a long race ahead and my target was to look after my tyres, stay within DRS range and overtake him later down the line. However, we underestimated the speed they had on the straights today, running a lower downforce package than us, which made them too fast to attempt to overtake them. Overall, it wasn’t the best day for our team, but we now head to Singapore and will come back stronger.”

George Russell – P3

“It was a really strange race today. It was very difficult on the Medium tyre in my first stint. I was over one second off the ultimate pace and finding it hard to control the rear tyre surface temperatures. On the Hard tyre in my second stint, the car felt brilliant. In the final 20 laps, I was lapping one second quicker than those at the very front. It is hard to work out exactly why this was and is a little frustrating.

“We were fortunate to get onto the podium and I am glad that both Carlos (Sainz) and Checo (Perez) are OK. We were having a relatively quiet run to P5 after I got past Verstappen, but we will take it. It is a good reward for all the efforts of the team after a challenging weekend on the whole.”

The majority of drivers (14) opted to start on the Medium tyre. The Hard was chosen by Lando Norris (McLaren), Alexander Albon (Williams), Daniel Ricciardo (Racing Bulls), Zhou Guanyu (Sauber) and both Alpine drivers (Ocon and Gasly). As expected, the one-stop strategy proved the most effective in terms of tyre management: only two drivers, Stroll and Verstappen, pitted twice, but in these cases the stops were not for strategic reasons: The Canadian had a puncture as a result of a collision with Tsunoda on the opening lap and the Dutchman pitted again because he tried to set the race fastest lap in the closing stages, able to come down pit lane without losing position.

The longest stint of all was driven by Pierre Gasly (Alpine), who completed 50 laps on the Hard, only pitting on the penultimate lap to switch to Softs. As for the Medium, Alex Albon made the most use of it, doing a long 20 lap second stint on the C4.

Mario Isola – Pirelli Director of Motorsport

“A fortnight on from the Italian Grand Prix, we have been treated to another really thrilling race, with the outcome unclear from the first lap to the last. In Monza we saw two different strategies in play, but today, almost everyone went with the same choice, but in no way did that detract from the on-track action, with a long three way fight for the lead, as well as several others battles throughout the race.

“For this weekend and indeed the next one, we have gone with the same choice of dry compounds, which worked as expected, adapting very well to the track characteristics and conditions. Going into the event, the Soft was clearly going to be a qualifying tyre and the Hard the quickest for the race, with the Medium as a great compromise for the first part of the race: between yesterday and today we saw those predictions confirmed.

“Even today, the track continued to rubber-in. It meant the lap times continued to improve and degradation was pretty limited. A few drivers experienced graining, especially in the first stint, but it did not significantly affect their performance. Clearly, running in traffic made life complicated in terms of tyre management, but that is pretty much inevitable with the current aerodynamic configuration of these cars.”