Azerbaijan Grand Prix: Will F1's Nintendo circuit deliver the goods this year?

Yay! Azerbaijan’s Mario Kart circuit is back to bemuse F1 fans, dividing opinion just as starkly as it did in 2016.

Last year’s inaugural F1 visit to Baku was memorable for many reasons, one of which was very definitely not the race.

But there are reasons to be optimistic about the 2017 weekend…

READ MORE: Lewis Hamilton urges Mercedes to match Ferrari’s race consistency

The circuit is still mad

There have been some tweaks to barriers and kerbs but the elements that give the Baku City Circuit its character haven’t been diluted.

In fact, thanks to additional barriers, the super-tight section around the castle is even narrower, while 2017’s F1 cars are 20cm wider. This section is more Formula E than Formula 1 but it’s already become iconic, whether you love it or hate it.

The section leading on to and including the start-finish straight remains the longest full-throttle blast on the F1 calendar, and the 20 angular bends offer plenty of opportunity for the over-ambitious to bin it.

Last year, qualifying was a must-watch, with drivers – Lewis Hamilton in particular – struggling to push hard without leaving the track.

And the GP2 race was a demolition-derby classic, with plenty of overtaking, plenty of smoking tyres and plenty of work for mechanics to do.

But the F1 race itself was a let-down, a genuine disappointment after the qualifying drama on the Saturday. However, this year should be better…

What’s changed?

What’s changed, and what should make for a better show, are the cars themselves.

Last year’s race was neutralised because drivers had to manage tyre degradation extremely carefully, once the race had settled down. No risks in the corners, gently Bentley, drive at 90 per cent of capacity.

This year, drivers are able to push tyres much more. That, coupled with the extremely high cornering speeds of 2017 cars, should encourage a bit more action in the corners.

And that, in turn, raises the prospect of some Safety Car action, with all the accompanying strategic shenanigans.

On the flip side, anyone worried about mechanical reliability will be sweating that 1.4-mile flat-out section.

The Baku circuit is a bit Monaco, a bit Monza, and getting the aerodynamics set up so the car can cannon along the long straight without being a turd in the twisty bits is quite a challenge for the engineers and strategists. We like that.

The title fight

There may be only one previous race to provide us with pointers, but it’s still an interesting battle looming between Sebastian Vettel and Lewis Hamilton.

Last year in Baku (it was the ‘European Grand Prix’ back then) Vettel nailed a second-place finish, one of only three he managed all season, and he looked strong.

He was helped by the unravelling of Hamilton’s weekend (pictured is Hamilton’s car being craned away after a qualifying crash), and the Mercedes driver struggling to fix an engine management issue during the race.

So the stats don’t tell the whole story – both drivers have shown they can do the business on this circuit.

Ferrari’s short wheelbase should give them the edge in the twisty bits, while Merc’s longer effort should pay dividends on the long straight. However, we’ve already seen this season that the long-base Merc isn’t necessarily at a disadvantage on tighter circuits so, again, there could be a cracking fight at the front.

Among the other teams, expect Red Bull to show well in the twists but suffer predictably on the straights, while Force India will score well if they keep their eye on the ball.

Rear gunners

Any bets on how long it will be before Fernando Alonso starts bitching about the lack of power from his Honda engine? On that long straight, he’d have more chance of being competitive in a car powered by sails.

But I’d be disappointed if he doesn’t impress in the tighter parts of the circuit, no matter how frustrating he finds it that his McLaren is swallowed by everyone on the fast section.

One team having it even worse than McLaren is Sauber, who have parted company with Team Principal Monisha Kaltenborn, over ‘diverging views of the future of the company’.

For which, read that Investment Manager Pascal Picci has flexed his financial muscles as Chairman of the team’s holding company.

Sauber have also seen fit to put out a statement denying that their two drivers are in any way treated differently to one another. Marcus Ericsson brings a lot of money to Sauber, and the supposition has always been that he may get favourable treatment – first dibs on upgrades, for example – over Pascal Wehrlein or, indeed, any other team-mate.

Reading between the lines, it looks like a row over a pay driver has finally pushed Kaltenborn out of a sport she’s been part of since the late 1990s, though it’s unlikely to be the only issue when a team principal leaves mid-season.

Keeping an F1 team alive at the back of the grid is a monumental challenge, and Kaltenborn has had to do her fair share of grubby work, not least managing to sell two driver places to three drivers and being dragged through the courts (by one Giedo van der Garde) as a result.

Whoever takes over – and it doesn’t look like Sauber’s directors have lined up a replacement to step in immediately – will face an uphill battle. They’re a team with limited resources, based in Switzerland (which is not somewhere that talented engineers and suchlike want to uproot their families to), wrestling with internal battles and about to be saddled with the under-achieving Honda power plant.

Could it be that they’re getting ready to sell out? Perhaps to Honda, who may fancy being able to control rather more tightly what a team says about their engines. Or perhaps to another entity – the word is that a Chinese F1 team may make an appearance in the next few years, possibly with state backing. Kerching.

One thing’s for sure, Sauber’s on-track performance this weekend is likely to be far less riveting than the gossip surrounding their future.