2023-04-30 15:16:14
The king of the streets in Formula 1 is Sergio Pérez. Both on his own merits and in this case due to unexpected help from his team against Max Verstappen, the Mexican took another victory on an urban track (second this weekend) in an Azerbaijan GP without much emotion at too many moments. it’s from the season. Pirelli stole the show again, forcing the pilots to manage the wear and tear, and only a safety car removed the cards a bit.
The lackluster early stages of the race made it clear that this was not going to be a race with much action. After a clean start in which there was practically no change in position, except for a touch from an excessively optimistic Albon who took two riders against the wall. Even Charles Leclerc, who started on pole, made it through the first two laps without losing pole… which he eventually did.
Thanks to the overtaking doped by the DRS, first Verstappen and then Pérez took the first position from Leclerc, who adds and continues with his particular record: another pole position that he is not capable of converting into victory, with the particularity that in this GP of Azerbaijan has done it twice. He has the merit of him.
While the race became a procession, behind the Aston Martins they gave a show, but not so much on the track as on the radios. Lance Stroll, who initially gained two positions, sent a notice to his engineers so that they would inform Fernando Alonso not to worry that he was not going to attack him. The Spaniard, who was at the wheel of Lewis Hamilton, replied that they should not worry about it and that, if he saw it necessary, he should overtake him, because the seven-time champion had tire problems and was going to end up losing time.
There was no fight between world champions, because Mercedes ordered Hamilton into the pits… and there his career ended. Not through his fault, since just after going out (in traffic, moreover) to the track again, De Vries was left lying with a broken wheel after touching the inside wall of a curve. F1’s once-great dominator wasn’t the only one hurt, as Red Bull made a much bigger mistake with its leader. They ordered Max Verstappen into the pits to change tires before the safety car was deployed. The great beneficiary of ‘Checo’ Pérez, who was first seen looking for another victory on an urban track.
Fernando Alonso, the omniscient of ‘Astur’ Martin
In the restart there were overtaking everywhere: Stroll to Russell, Verstappen to Leclerc (minimizing damage with the Red Bull team’s pitfalls) and Alonso to Sainz. The Asturian gritted his teeth to subdue the man from Madrid, who this time did not close.
The hunt for Alonso’s podium then began, while he had time to think about other issues. In yet another demonstration of his absolute mastery of everything that happens on the track, the Spaniard sent a message over the radio asking Lance Stroll to copy his brake balance setup, as the Canadian was suffering in this regard. Alonso’s work, once again, goes beyond driving, although he cannot control his teammate’s driving skills, who demonstrated with a touch on the wall that the Aston Martin AMR23 (or ‘Astur’ Martin, as already they have baptized him) is hard.
The race stabilized. Pérez began to manage the advantage over Verstappen, who, forced to attack, suffered a little more, while behind Alonso he did the same to hunt down Leclerc in search of his fourth consecutive podium. The possibility of an eventual clash between the Red Bull drivers, who experience constant internal tension with eventual flashes, made it necessary for Alonso to hunt down Leclerc before the end of the race, not only to get on the podium but to think about the long-awaited 33.
The problem is that they didn’t fail. In fact, it wasn’t until lap 44 that everyone started to pick up the pace, showing that they were previously keeping ‘Piedrelli’ tires that once again lasted much longer than the show needed. To highlight a monumental blunder in the direction of the race, which allowed photojournalists to enter the pitlane while Ocon was entering to make his mandatory stop to change wheels. The scare that the Frenchman from Alpine had, tremendous.
Thus, the last laps were to find who was doing the fastest lap. Confirmed that they were going to go to the end with these wheels, the times began to drop with a curious fight on the stopwatch between Pérez, Verstappen and Alonso, until Russell (in 8th position) made a stop to ride soft and score the extra point .
The victory went to a Checo Pérez who has two victories this weekend (the one in the sprint and the one that really counts), ahead of a Max Verstappen who resigned himself to the strategic blunder and a Charles Leclerc who left out of the podium Alonso for the first time this year. Carlos Sainz, gray and with serious sensation problems, settled for a 5th place that he knows little about.
#Fortune #smiles #Checo #Pérez #Azerbaijan