George Russell is handling the Mercedes and the pain it inflicts better than teammate Lewis Hamilton. Photo / Don Kennedy
This time last year Max Verstappen was lamenting losing the Azerbaijan Grand Prix in Baku, after he had a tyre blow out on the main straight when leading with three laps to go.
His demise enabled his Red Bull teammate Sergio Perez to win the race, but Verstappen has redeemed himself by taking his first victory in this event, and his fifth for the season in just eight races, to cement his championship lead. Verstappen's success came at the expense of pole-sitter Charles Leclerc, who was leading the race when his engine blew.
We will never know if he might have won because they were on different race strategies. But with Perez finishing second to Verstappen, albeit 20 seconds behind, and with Carlos Sainz in the other Ferrari having stopped early in the race while in fourth place, with a hydraulic problem, it was a full-points scoring day for Red Bull, with Perez taking fastest lap, and zero points for Ferrari.
Perez took the lead from Leclerc at the first corner at the start of the race, but when the first of two virtual safety-car deployments occurred, Leclerc pitted, as did several other front runners, while the Red Bulls stayed out. It was a decision Perez later suggested he didn't fully understand.
"To me, it's first of all the communication wasn't tidy today with the team," he told Sky Sports F1. "We should have 'boxed' on the virtual safety car and our race would have looked very different."
As it transpired, Verstappen was able to look after his tyres better than Perez, which left him a sitting duck as the world champion closed him down. The call came on the team radio for "no fighting" so Perez did little to resist being overtaken by Verstappen when it came. Given Perez felt that team orders in Spain possibly cost him the race win there, the team might have been expecting Perez to resent the call not to fight, but instead he accepted it.
"I think it was the right call made by the team because at that time Max was a bit further ahead and it was just a good team result. And in this place, anything can happen, so at the end of the day, we managed to get a one-two, so that's a great team result."
For Verstappen, this was victory number 25, meaning he is now in the top 10 of drivers for wins in F1, equalling, for now, the late Jim Clark and the late Niki Lauda, who were two and three-time world champions respectively. Clark was tragically killed in an F2 race in Hockenheim in 1968 at age 32. He raced for eight seasons, and in 72 starts had 25 victories and took 32 pole positions.
He also had 23 race retirements, usually when in the lead, so reliability was something that prevented him winning more races and championships, and then of course his tragic death.
By comparison, this is also Verstappen's eighth year in F1, but there are now almost three times as many races in a season than what Clark's era had. Max has now had 149 starts yet he's only 24 years old. He has also had 26 race retirements, more than Clark, but of course he's started twice as many races
Lauda had 13 seasons in F1, and 171 starts, and failed to finish 78 of them, 45 per cent of his races. Those statistics simply confirm the difficulty of comparing drivers from different eras.
Had Clark survived and raced as long as Fernando Alonso has, who has set a new record of the longest stint in F1, being 21 years and 3 months, removing another of Michael Schumacher's records, his numbers could have been like Lewis Hamilton's. Alonso has 32 wins, but they come from 341 starts, meaning in terms of percentage he is not in the same ballpark as Clark, Hamilton or Verstappen.
If he continues on his winning way, Verstappen will join Alonso as a two-time champion and will also likely surpass Alonso's total of wins this season, which would place him sixth on the all-time winners list. That list is headed by Hamilton (103), followed by Schumacher (91), Sebastian Vettel (53) Alain Prost (510 and the late Ayrton Senna (41).
Based on what he recently said about possibly retiring when his Red Bull contract expires in 2028, Verstappen certainly won't threaten Alonso's record 21 years in F1 and counting, but in another six years he could match the seven titles Hamilton and Schumacher have. But you get the sense Verstappen is not chasing records in the same way Hamilton has been, although time will tell.
For now, he is leading the championship by 21 points from Perez, and perhaps more importantly, 34 points clear of Leclerc, who after three races had a lead of 43 points over Verstappen.
Things can change quickly, something Verstappen and his father Jos, are well aware of. He was asked if his first win in Baku made up for what happened last year.
"You can never make up what you lost last year, but I think today we had an incredible pace in the car," he told Sky Sports F1. "We could really look after the tyres, and we could chip away at it and pass for the lead.
"But then, of course, also maybe a tiny bit of lucky because of the retirement [meaning Ferrari] but I think, nevertheless, our car was really quick today, so I could have closed that gap."
This was Verstappen's 66th podium for Red Bull, breaking Vettel's team record, but Vettel does have four world championships to his name for his six-year stint with Red Bull. Somewhat remarkably, Verstappen hadn't been on the podium in Baku before this victory, which is also Red Bull's 81st F1 victory, joining Lotus on that total.
Jos Verstappen says his son was challenged by what happened in Monaco, and a "challenged Max is an even better Max".
But he knows it can all change.
"A win is a always beautiful, but it's good to see the kind of run Max and Red Bull are stringing together," he wrote.in his weekly column.
"After the two retirements at the start of the season, everyone thought it could be lost. Now you see Ferrari are currently having problems, but things can change in an instant and it remains a very technical sport."
For Leclerc, his engine failure added to the disappointment of losing a win in Spain with a DNF, and starting on pole, but only finishing fourth, in Monaco.
"It's a disappointing outcome for us today," he told Sky Sports. "It's time to go home and rest before Canada. We have to get on top of things and come back stronger there."
Ferrari team principal Matteo Binotti admits the Ferrari engine woes are a real concern.
"I think we said it even before coming here to Baku. Reliability is always a factor, which is as much a key factor in the battle as is the performance. There is still some work to be done, but as I think we didn't get euphoric at the start of the season, we will not be devastated right now."
Mercedes continues to have more problems than most of the other teams with porpoising, but despite that, George Russell finished on the podium, while Hamilton started seventh and finished fourth with a little help from Ferrari and Yuki Tsunoda not finishing. Russell acknowledged the work being done back in the factory but pointed out they cannot rely on others' misfortune to improve their own. He is doing a better job of driving a car that is said to be difficult to drive, than Hamilton, and also not suffering the same back problem caused by the porpoising, that Hamilton complained about all weekend.
Team boss Toto Wolff apologised to Hamilton over the team radio, who at the end of the race could hardly get out of his car.
Wolff: "Lewis, we all know this is a bit of a sh**box to drive at the moment. Sorry for the back also, we will sort ourselves out. Well driven."
Hamilton: "Well done guys, great job with the strategy, thank you for continuing to push. Let's definitely make some changes, okay?"
Midway through the race Hamilton said: "My back is killing me" and after the race, "I can't express the pain you experience, particularly on the straight here. And in the end, you're just praying for it to end.
"Once we fix this bouncing we can be right there in the race, but we were losing for sure over a second just from bouncing," he added.
The team will not have much time to fix the problem, because this weekend it is the Canadian Grand Prix in Montreal, another circuit with a long straight that will suit the straight-line speed the Red Bulls have and will be another bouncing problem for Mercedes. Ferrari will want to sort out its reliability issues, otherwise this championship could become just a battle between the Red Bull drivers.
Based on the way Verstappen was able to look after his tyres and find extra pace in Baku, Perez will have his work cut out to stay with his teammate, whose latest victory elevates him into the top 10 drivers of all time, based on race victories.
It is worth remembering that had he not blown a tyre in Baku last year, the championship would not have gone down to the wire like it did, and there would have been no fuss about Hamilton supposedly being robbed of another title. We are now seeing that Verstappen is something special, and temporarily joining greats like Clark and Lauda on the number of race wins, is testament to his special qualities.
Sources: Red Bull Racing, Sky Sports F1 and F1.com