Azerbaijan Grand Prix – Sergio Perez took victory for Red Bull at the first Sprint of the year after passing Charles Leclerc on track.
The first Sprint of the 2023 season only saw eighteen of the twenty drivers line up on the grid as Logan Sargeant was withdrawn from the event after Williams were unable to repair his car in time after a crash in the Sprint Shootout this morning. Alpine had taken Esteban Ocon’s car out of parc ferme conditions to change the suspension setup and as such the French driver will now forfeit his P13 today and P12 for the Grand Prix and instead start from the pitlane in both.
Sprint Results – 2023 Azerbaijan Grand Prix
As they lined up on the grid the medium compound was the tyre of choice for all but Lando Norris in P10 and Valtteri Bottas in P15. Given Norris wasn’t able to participate in SQ3 as new soft tyres were mandatory and he didn’t have any left, he is obviously on used softs for the start of the Sprint.
As he will tomorrow, Charles Leclerc will be starting on pole with a Red Bull beside and behind him today it’ll be Sergio Perez joining him on row 1 while he’ll have Max Verstappen there for the Grand Prix.
The lights went out for the Sprint and it was a very clean first corner with all drivers getting through unscathed, there was a change in the podium positions a few corners in though as Verstappen and George Russell had a bit of contact while battling and it was the Mercedes who then had control of the final podium spot.
Somehow Yuki Tsunoda’s right rear tyre detached from his car towards the end of the opening lap. The AlphaTauri driver having hit the wall and then the rubber detaching from his car and making its own way down the track. The Japanese driver made it back to the pits with three working wheels where he got a new front wing, which had been damaged against the wall, and his wheel was replaced before he rejoined the circuit. However, the rear suspension had been damaged and his car was crabbing, so he slowly made his way back to the pits to retire. AlphaTauri will be investigated after the race though for sending the car back out in an unsafe condition.
The Virtual Safety Car was called as the tyre rubber was still rolling around on the track before stopping in the middle of the circuit, while debris from the AlphaTauri’s wheel was also scattered across the track. The VSC was then upped to a full Safety Car was then called out on lap 3
The race got back underway on lap 6 and Verstappen, who had been very annoyed about Russell damaging his car while passing earlier, took the place back from the Mercedes driver.
There was a lead change on lap 8 when Perez used the DRS to breeze past Leclerc into T1. The gap between the two remained within a second for the following few laps but the Ferrari just wasn’t able to challenge and then had to deal with Verstappen closing up and getting into DRS range.
The soft tyre gamble didn’t pay off for Norris, he had dropped to P13 by lap 11 and then had to swap onto the mediums though he was well behind Ocon at the back, the Alpine racer having made his own tyre change, from medium to soft, behind the Safety Car and then took another set on lap 13.
By lap 15 there were none of the top ten drivers had DRS available as the field had spread out slightly. Perez had pulled over three seconds of breathing space between himself and Leclerc while Verstappen was over a second behind the Ferrari, the two lapping over a second slower than the leader.
Perez took the chequered flag nearly four and a half seconds ahead of Leclerc though Verstappen had managed to close back up to the Monegasque he wasn’t able to challenge and had to settle for P3. Russell came home in P4 ahead of Carlos Sainz while Fernando Alonso was P6. Lewis Hamilton finished in P7 while the final point went to Lance Stroll in P8.
