The Formula 1 Azerbaijan Grand Prix was held on the track for the first time in September this year. The top three drivers on the grid were Charles Leclerc, Oscar Piastri and Carlos Sainz. A minute after start, Carlos Sainz and Lance Stroll’s cars briefly touched on the first lap, but it did not cause any damage.
On the lap 16, McLaren made an team order to Norris to slow down Perez behind him as much as possible. Of course, this step was for his teammate Piastri. Although he succeeded until the end of the lap, Perez was able to overtake him in the end and moved up to 5th position. Charles Leclerc, who had been leading the race for 19 laps, lost his place to Oscar Piastri on the lap 20. Sergio Perez, who started the race in 4th place and dropped to 6th place for a while, got to the 3rd position since 19th lap. On the contrary, Sainz, who started 1 position ahead of Perez, continued to race in 4th place for a long time after then.
Towards the end of the race, on the 50th lap out 51, the fight for the first places became even more intense. Perez briefly rose to the 2nd position but quickly dropped to 4th place, losing his previous place to Sainz. In the heated “fight” between them for the 3rd place, Sainz’s car suddenly leaned to the left and crashed into Perez, so the latter crashed into the wall, as a result of which both had a serious accident and all points were lost. Thus, towards the end of the race, all the race results suddenly change. In the end, Oscar Piastri took first, Charles Leclerc took second and George Russell took the third place.
It should be noted that Perez’s result in this Formula 1 Azerbaijan Grand Prix was quite high, even leaving behind the team’s best Verstappen and remaining on the 3rd place. For Perez, who has not shown high success for a long time, he really needed that high result that he was very close to in this race, but he unexpectedly lost it. Although the video clip shows Sainz suddenly steering to the left on the long straight after Turn 2, the FIA stewards analyzed this incident, as well as Sainz’s moves on the previous laps, and decided that there were no chaotic movement, so did not give any penalties to neither driver.
Article/Photo: Nurlan Tahirli
