Accident before the finish line and error on braking: how Verstappen and Hamilton missed the victory at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix

First day

Before the Grand Prix of Azerbaijan, Mercedes 'positions in Formula 1 were shaken so much that the team lost its leadership in both the individual world championship and the constructors' championship. The winner of the Monaco Grand Prix Max Verstappen has arrived in Baku with the title of the best pilot of this season at the moment, having managed to beat Lewis Hamilton by four points. At the same time, his Red Bull was one ahead of Mercedes, which until recently seemed completely unthinkable.

Already on the first day of the racing weekend, it became clear that the counterattack of the German stable would not be easy. On Friday morning, Verstappen showed the best time in free practice, and only Charles Leclair of Ferrari, who took second place, could come close to him. Hamilton finished only seventh, and Valtteri Bottas closed the top ten. Due to the specifics of the city track, the teams spent more time searching for the optimal settings for the cars and assessing the efficiency of the tires, and the evening session was supposed to give more objective results.

In the second training session, many pilots really improved, but this did not concern the Mercedes drivers.

Hamilton was out of the top ten and lost to Sergio Perez, who headed the protocol, for more than a second.

Together with Verstappen pilots of Red Bull took the lead, and Ferrari showed the best time after them in full force.

Bottas' speeds were even lower.

Only two positions and less than 1.4 seconds was lost to him by Nikita Mazepin on Haas.

Second day

But Verstappen was not happy for long with the success of the Grand Prix. In Saturday's free races, he crashed his car in the 25th minute and did not return to the track until the end of training. He never showed a decent time in six laps, especially since other pilots felt better and better every minute on the dangerous Baku track. At the same time, it was not his partner who headed the protocol, but Pierre Gasly from Alpha Tauri. Hamilton only at that moment was able to enter the top three, but lost almost half a second to the Frenchman.

The mechanics of Red Bull managed to restore Verstappen's car, and together with other drivers, he went to the first qualifying session.

But it did not end well for everyone: in the first attempt, the car was crashed by Lance Stroll in an Aston Martin, and in the second, Antonio Giovinazzi from Alfa Romeo had an accident at the same place.

Hamilton continued to improve and topped the interim protocol, sending Verstappen to second place.

After the break, the pilots managed to make only one attempt - an accident with the participation of Daniel Riccardo in McLaren prevented.

This time, Verstappen was faster than Hamilton, and Perez was between them.

The top three fit into just one hundredth of a second, which foreshadowed an incredible fight in the final qualifying session.

However, the competition had to be stopped again.

This time the car was crashed by Gasli's partner Yuki Tsunoda, and Carlos Sainz in Ferrari did not have time to react and also flew off the track.

The qualification had to be interrupted ahead of schedule, and by that time Leclair was the leader.

He won pole position for the second time in a row.

Hamilton made his way to the first row of the starting grid, and Verstappen fell back to third place.

Mazepin, thanks to two accidents at the beginning of qualification, got 18th place on the starting grid - so far the highest in his career.

Race

For Ferrari, starting from first place was already a dream come true. But the track in Baku is noticeably different from the one on which the races in Monaco are held, and the Italian team no longer had any advantage over its rivals. After the start of Sunday's race, Leclair remained the first for some time, but gradually let Hamilton and Verstappen go ahead. At the same time, a dense group of pursuers was walking behind him, so the Monegasque decided to be the first to change tires and went to an early pit stop.

Hamilton drove up to the mechanics, and the Briton stayed with them for an unusually long time. When Verstappen returned to the track after a pit stop, he was ahead of the Briton by a full three seconds. Perez showed the best lap times even on old tires, so when he changed his shoes too, the Mercedes driver was behind the entire Red Bull roster. Hamilton tried to fight on the track with Perez, but so he only let go ahead of Verstappen, who was not prevented from rushing to the finish line. The Dutchman even took away the best lap from his partner and was ahead of him by five seconds.

But this advantage soon faded away. On lap 31 out of 51, Stroll crashed his car on the starting line due to a punctured wheel, which caused a safety car to hit the track. The pilots had to drive several laps one after another, before all the debris was removed from the asphalt, due to which the exit to the pit lane was even blocked for some time. When the race resumed as usual, Hamilton tried to immediately attack Perez, but the Mexican car was faster. Verstappen soon established a new best lap, which practically removed all questions about the winner of the race.

And suddenly, four laps before the finish, the Dutchman got into exactly the same accident as Stroll. His tire burst on the starting line, after which it became completely impossible to control the car. When Verstappen left the cockpit, the first thing he did was kick violently at the torn tire, which robbed him of victory. Due to the abundance of debris, the other pilots had to return to the pits and wait for the race to resume.

After almost half an hour, the pilots lined up on the starting grid to reach the last three laps, of which one was to be a warm-up. Hamilton had a great chance to win the race, for which it was necessary to win the start against Perez who was in front. When the traffic lights went out, the Briton really got ahead of the Red Bull pilot, but did not brake before the first turn and flew off the track. Hamilton avoided an accident, but dropped to 15th place and did not even have time to get around Mazepin, who finished the race 14th and achieved the best result in his career in the second race in a row.

Perez retained the lead and won his first victory in the Red Bull. Thanks to her, the Mexican rose to third place in the overall standings, where the first two lines are still occupied by Verstappen and Hamilton, who remained without glasses in Azerbaijan. Sebastian Vettel unexpectedly came second to the finish line, bringing Aston Martin the first podium in history. Pierre Gasly closed the podium.