With three races played so far, the watchword for this edition of the Formula 1 world championship has been just one: hegemony. It's that in three tests, three Mercedes victories were counted (two for Hamilton and one for Bottas) and in all races the German team managed to occupy the first two places on the podium.
In view of these numbers and the good moment demonstrated by Mercedes, the question that arises is: will Mercedes be able to reach the fourth one-two in a row and become the first team in the history of Formula 1 to reach the first and second places in the first four races of the year?
The main team capable of combating the hegemony of silver arrows is Ferrari, but the truth is that Cavallino Rampante's brand car has fallen short of expectations and to that issue are added the controversial team orders that seem to continue to favor Vettel against Leclerc which ended up costing the young Monegasque driver fourth place in China.
The Baku Circuit
First race held on European soil (yes, Azerbaijan is part of Europe…), the Azerbaijan GP takes place on the ever demanding urban circuit of Baku, a track prodigal with skirmishes and accidents that saw the Red Bull Max Verstappen riders last year and Daniel Ricciardo collide with each other or Bottas lose the victory due to a puncture.Subscribe to our newsletter
Inserted in the Formula 1 championship only in 2016, the Baku circuit extends over 6,003 km (it is the longest urban circuit in the championship), featuring 20 curves and the narrowest section, with just seven meters in width between between turns 9 and 10 and an average width between turns 7 and 12 of only 7.2 m.
Interestingly, no driver has ever won this Grand Prix twice, and from the current grid, only Lewis Hamilton and Daniel Ricciardo have won there. As for teams, the best record in Baku is from Mercedes, which won the race in the last two years.
A look at the incident that brought first practice to a premature end in Baku ? #AzerbaijanGP ?? #F1 pic.twitter.com/VikJY5ts4M
— Formula 1 (@F1) April 26, 2019
What to expect?
In addition to the “battle” between Mercedes and Ferrari (which even updated the SF90), Red Bull sees an opportunity to intrude between the two, even announcing an update of the Honda engine for the Azerbaijani GP.
Further back, there will be several teams that will try to take advantage of the usual racing incidents (very common in Baku) to get ahead. Among these stand out for Renault, which saw Ricciardo finally finish a race in China (and in 7th) or McLaren, which hopes to get closer to the front places.
early trouble for @ValtteriBottas as he loses control momentarily at Turn 2 #AzerbaijanGP ?? #F1 pic.twitter.com/XC2P3n0K4l
— Formula 1 (@F1) April 26, 2019
Free practice has already started and the truth is that, until now, they have been marked by… incidents, with George Russell from Williams hitting a manhole cover and forcing the track to be cleaned. As a bad luck, the tow crane that was taking the single-seater back to the pits crashed under a bridge. The collision caused the crane to rupture, causing it to lose oil, which ran off… guess what… right above the Williams single-seater! Watch the video:
As for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, it is scheduled to start at 1:05 pm (mainland Portugal time) on Sunday.