2025 Azerbaijan GP: Post Race Analysis

While Baku remains the best street circuit on the F1 calendar, this race was a snooze fest. Tire management and DRS trains were the name of the game.

Red Bull seem to have a properly competitive car in low downforce circuits. Back to back wins for Max, in dominating fashion too. Another Grand Slam. A perfectly executed race. Yuki finally gets a respectable result and he did it on merit.

Mercedes also looked strong in the cool weather where they were not managing tire temps. George had a fantastic race, even more impressive considering how sick he was feeling all weekend. Kimi ends a string of bad results with a solid 4th place finish. Curious to see how Mercedes performs as cooler weather should finish off this season.

Williams back on the podium! Who isn't happy about that? Sainz may have been fortunate with the timing of the weather in qualifying but he kept the car up there and drove a great race in a car that was not top 4. Albon had an okay recovery drive but once again his own mistake while making a pass attempt hurt any chance at points.

RB can be very pleased with today. Lawson had his best race and was a master in defense. He had wolves nipping at his feet all day and still stayed ahead. Great job. Hadjar a decent race, he just wasn't in a fast enough car. Double points is still a good day.

McLaren had a chance to win the WCC this weekend and they failed miserably. Lando was given a golden opportunity to score big points on Oscar, not once but twice, and yet he failed once again. McLaren partially to blame with a slow pitstop that perhaps cost him a couple positions, but still underwhelming from Lando. Oscar very rare mistakes and he made 3 of them. Will he be able to keep it together for the rest of the season?

Ferrari another disaster. Leclerc is traditionally mega around Baku and loves his track and yet he was a huge disappointment. The strategy was wrong but its shocking he couldn't get by Lawson and didn't gain anything with an early pitstop having tires 20 laps fresher than his direct competitors. Hamilton did go from 12th to 8th, which is a positive, but he was slow. The fact that he failed to give back the position to Charles at the end is pathetic. Leclerc rightfully shouldn't care that he didn't get 8th as it means nothing. It's the fact that either Lewis, a 7x world champ, is unable to calculate how to slow down enough to give back that position.. OR, what's even worse, he deliberately failed to give it back just so he could beat his teammate to 8th. Like I said, pathetic.

Sauber was fighting all day and nothing to show for it. Bortoletto has found his place and is consistently beating Hulkenberg.

Haas also scrapping all race. Bearman has also found his place and is consistently beating Ocon.

Aston Martin and absolute waste. That car is horrendous in high speed circuits and it's mainly down to high drag. The Mercedes is a very good PU, so that isn't an excuse. Alonso unlucky with Piastri jumping the start and understandably reacting, but it didn't matter. He had no pace regardless. Stroll, couldn't expect anything more from him.

Alpine at least have an excuse for having an underpowered engine compared to everyone else. It's no surprise they struggle tremendously. Going as far as putting Monza wings on the car to still be slow on the straights.

Driver of the Day: George Russell. Being very sick and being one of the star performers is impressive. He moved forward, made passes, had one of the most impressive stints and was awesome in his attack on pit entry and was rewarded with a well deserved 2nd place. Max and Carlos for sure get honorable mentions.