(Un)lucky number three
Gianluca Petecof’s tale of woe continued with him running out of money and being forced to give up his F2 seat. Who needs talented drivers when you can have rich ones? Enter Matteo Nannini who seems to have found some more money to fund the extravagance that is his parallel F2 and F3 seasons, having recently dropped his F2 campaign because it’s MASSIVELY EXPENSIVE to do one racing series, never mind two.
Practice: Three wheels
Marino Sato kick started the Baku drama by smashing into the wall and breaking one of his wheels. He didn’t let having only three wheels stop him though, heading back to the pits and picking up a three-place grid penalty for creating a safety hazard.
Lirim Zendeli was next up, getting stuck in the run-off area. After being pushed a bit by the marshals, they seemed to have been convinced that he could deal with the situation himself and he was just sitting there, apparently trying to roll towards the track. Surprisingly this approach didn’t work and then the marshals were back out and the VSC was called to help him recover.
Jack Aitken then showed everyone how it’s done by losing it going around a corner, but then somehow regaining control, resulting in the coolest move ever seen, sliding around the corner at speed and gently touching the barriers before carrying on as if nothing had happened. Too cool Jack.
By the end of the session the track had almost cleaned up enough (aside from the odd coke can) for everyone to start setting representative lap times. Everyone apart from Roy Nissany, who crashed his car and brought out the red flag with one minute to go. That left the final standings as Jüri Vips fastest, Ralph Boschung second and Théo Pourchaire third.
Qualifying: Three hours isn’t enough time to fix a car
Having broken his car just three hours earlier during practice, Nissany was unable to take part in qualifying so there would definitely be no smiling for him this weekend. All the other drivers, however, would have been smiling because commentator Alex J told us that “drivers love this place”. Cut to Liam Lawson, “places like this is just trying to survive.” The enthusiasm was overwhelming.
By the end of the first half of qualifying, Marcus Armstrong was on provisional pole, but it wasn’t long before everyone was flying and the lap times were tumbling. All the drivers managed to keep on track throughout the session and everything looked very professional compared to F1 (for the time being).
In the closing moments of qualifying, it was between Lawson and Vips for pole, but Vips messed up his lap a bit, while Lawson went even faster, claiming the fastest lap, ahead of Vips in second and Oscar Piastri in third.
After qualifying, Lundgaard, Aitken and Samaia were all given three-place grid drops because Lundgaard impeded Zhou, Aitken impeded Lundgaard and Samaia impeded Viscaal. Slightly less professional there.
Sprint Race 1: Three (plus two) seconds ahead
Robert Shwartzman qualified tenth, which meant he was on pole for the first Sprint Race. Jehan Daruvala was second and Guanyu Zhou was third. Zhou thought it was going to be a mess, Daruvala thought he had a chance of winning, and Shwartzman just wanted to get a good start, not make any mistakes, have good pace, win the race, and then also keep up that momentum and do well in the other races too. Simple.
The most surprising thing about the start was the distinct lack of carnage. Shwartzman made the good start he wanted and the top three remained the same. The only other drivers not to make it past the first few corners were Aitken and Deledda, who spun out, while Drugovich crashed into Piastri who then crashed into Lawson. Piastri and Lawson were out, Drugovich got a ten-second penalty and the Safety Car was called. All very mild chaos by Baku standards.
As the Safety Car returned to the pits, Shwartzman’s restart was perfect, while seventh-placed Pourchaire’s was not, as Vips made a great move to steal the place. However it was Dan Ticktum who was doing all the overtaking, passing Boschung, Armstrong, Daruvala and Zhou in just a few laps, making his way up to second place. By this time, Shwartzman was already four seconds ahead of everyone else, clearly very determined to finally get his first win of the season.
With just five laps to go, Shwartzman was still pushing hard, as Ticktum behind him was also still pushing hard and third-placed Zhou hadn’t given up either. Piastri, meanwhile was sitting at the edge of the track, a sad spectator. Elsewhere Deledda and Lawson were also hanging at the edge of the race track, Lawson having still not even taken off his crash helmet. Happy people all round.
Despite Ticktum and Zhou’s best efforts, Shwartzman dominated, taking a lights-to-flag victory and finishing five seconds ahead of everyone else. Further down, Vips had found himself battling hard over seventh place throughout the race, and was giving it his all down the finishing straight on the last lap, crossing the line less than a tenth of a second behind Armstrong and flying off into the turn-one run-off area to end the race. Standard Baku.
Winner Shwartzman was fully delighted as the Ferrari bigwigs watched on at the podium celebrations. The first step of his weekend plan was completed, just two more races left to win.
Sprint Race 2: Three corners of chaos
The grid for the second Sprint Race was the top ten from the first race reversed. This left Viscaal on pole, Beckmann second and Vips in third. Viscaal got a good start, Beckmann tried to go around the outside of him and Vips tried to follow, but they couldn’t make it so Beckmann waited one corner more before making a fantastic move on Viscaal to take the lead of the race.
Meanwhile, further down the field, Zhou and Ticktum were crashed out at turn one, after Zhou’s car broke and he took Ticktum off with him. Zendeli was off at turn two and Boschung was out at turn three having been punted out by Pourchaire. The Safety Car was called, with the only survivor being Pourchaire, albeit with a bit of damage requiring a trip to the pits.
Once the marshals had cleared up the first three corners, everyone had a smooth restart, except third-placed Vips (who got overtaken by Daruvala before fighting to get the place back and then going on to do a great move on Viscaal) and anyone who was in front of Ticktum (who was on yet another overtaking charge).
Just a few laps later, the Safety Car was back out after Nissany ran into the back of Verschoor. Nissany insisted that Verschoor brake checked him, while Verschoor maintained that Nissany was an “idiot” and stood applauding Nissany as he drove past Verschoor’s now very broken car. Race Control also took a dim view of Nissany’s actions, giving him a drive-through penalty.
At the restart, race leader Beckmann got away well, Viscaal tried to gain second place back from Vips, but couldn’t quite manage it and the rest was CHAOS. Lundgaard, Drugovich and Lawson managed to get themselves into some three-wide situation, which resulted in Lundgaard being shunted off the track. Armstrong also ended up in the wall after locking up while trying to overtake Viscaal. Armstrong was left with no choice but to go and sit by the edge of the tack, looking very emo, while the Virtual Safety Car was deployed for track clean up.
After the VSC, Vips went about chasing down Beckmann for the lead, before managing to get by him, aided by DRS. This left Vips in first, Beckmann second and Daruvala third (having presumably overtaken Viscaal in all the chaos but who honestly knows?), which is how it stayed for the rest of the race. Despite having lost victory, Beckmann didn’t look too disappointed, while conversely Vips didn’t stick around on the podium to celebrate because apparently he only had one race suit and he didn’t want to get champagne on it. Rock and roll Jüri.
Feature Race: Three drivers and one wall
Remember back to Friday’s qualifying? No, me neither, but thankfully the F2 people did and it was Lawson on pole, Vips second and Piastri in third. None of that qualifying business mattered to Aitken and Nannini though, who were both stopped on the grid, causing the start to be aborted and everyone else being forced to do another formation lap while the marshals wheeled the stricken cars to the pitlane. Aitken managed to get going again from there, whereas Nannini’s car problem was terminal.
As the race finally got started, Vips nudged into Lawson while overtaking for the lead. It was tense, but Lawson managed to avoid another trip into the wall, getting overtaken by Piastri instead. Still third place is better than being smashed into a barrier. Behind them it was chaos. Everyone was going for it, including Ticktum, Armstrong and Pourchaire who were three wide into one corner. Needless to say it did not end well for any of them. Armstrong was out of the race with a broken car, Pourchaire was out of the race with a broken wrist (get well soon Théo) and Ticktum was looking like he was out of the chance of any sort of good race, as he was in the pits for a new nose, given a ten-second penalty for causing a collision and quite characteristically causing all kinds of internet controversy. Needless to say, there was a Safety Car.
Following the Safety Car restart, Lawson managed to get his own back on Piastri, overtaking him after a hard-fought battle, to reclaim second place. It was all going so well for Lawson until Race Control decided to dish out a ten-second penalty for being a bit too defensive when Pourchaire had been trying to overtake him earlier on. Clearly Lawson had been unhappy about every man and his dog trying to pass him at the start, but he sounded even more unhappy about his penalty and it became clear why he wasn’t one of the drivers who said they loved Baku.
Further down the field, history was repeating itself (and Nissany must have been watching in glee) as Verschoor ran into the back of Viscaal, in an exact replica of the Nissany/Verschoor incident that happened in the previous race. Although it apparently wasn’t exactly the same, as the stewards kept quiet about it (or there was just far too much stewarding happening that I missed it).
The next few laps were torture as F1 TV decided to stream the race commentary audio and some random other audio at the same time, which was far too distracting and upsetting to watch. Thanks F1 TV. By the end of the audio hell, everyone had pitted except Ticktum (who had switched to the alternative strategy after pitting for damage early in the race) and Aitken (who was the only person who had decided to start on the alternative strategy). All the pitstops had gone reasonably to plan, apart from Piastri’s when he nearly ran into Drugovich and got a five-second penalty for an unsafe release.
In the lead of the race, Ticktum was driving his heart out while telling his engineer he had no idea what was going on. Cue engineer having to deliver the bad news about the penalty. Another engineer having to deliver penalty news was Deledda’s, as he was given a drive-through for nearly taking out Vips as he went to lap him, aka “ignoring blue flags”. Zhou’s engineer was also losing patience, as Zhou complained about how slow he was, only to be told that his engineer didn’t want to hear any more and that Zhou should “just get on with it.”
As Ticktum and Aitken eventually came in to make their pitstops, Vips and Piastri and were still first and second, while Shwartzman was now in third, thanks to Lawson’s penalty. Shwartzman was pushing hard to try to get within five seconds of Piastri and his penalty, but it proved to be too difficult and so the top three crossed the line as they were, and all looked very happy about it too. Shwartzman’s double podium having launched him into championship contention, Piastri having managed to salvage some points from a disappointing weekend, and Vips having won two races, and now fully able to enjoy the champagne. The champagne was apparently Vips’s priority, as he left his trophy on the podium after the celebrations. Luckily his engineer wasn’t grumpy and so picked it up for him.
Not happy, however, was Ticktum, who was still raging on the radio, despite having done an amazing recovery drive from at one point basically being last, then serving a ten-second penalty, and still having overtaken everyone to end the race in eighth.
Championship Standings: A change to the top three
Despite me pretending he basically didn’t exist this weekend, Zhou (78 points) is still leading the championship. Piastri (73 points) is still behind him in second, albeit closer now, while Shwartzman has climbed the standings up into third place (66 points) and will surely be much happier about how things are going.
After his excellent weekend, Vips (63 points) is now up to fourth, Ticktum (60 points) drops one place to fifth and Pourchaire (55 points) has dropped down from third to sixth. It’s close, unlike the next round which is many many weeks away. So far in fact, that they haven’t even put a countdown on the F2 website. Sad times.