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Motor racing-Team by team analysis of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix

Azerbaijan Grand Prix

(Reuters) - Team by team analysis of Sunday's Azerbaijan Formula One Grand Prix in Baku (listed in championship order):

RED BULL (Sergio Perez 1, Max Verstappen retired)

Perez's second F1 win and first with Red Bull. He moved up to third overall while Red Bull extended their championship lead. Verstappen crashed out while leading when his rear left tyre blew at around 300kph with five laps to go, an accident that halted the race. The pair had been one-two at that point. Verstappen stayed top overall and Red Bull stretched their constructors' lead to 26 points.

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MERCEDES (Valtteri Bottas 12, Lewis Hamilton 15)

Hamilton, second on the grid, took the lead from Charles Leclerc on lap three but could not pull away from the Red Bulls. He lost out to both when his lap 12 pitstop went a couple of seconds long to ensure a safe release. Hamilton could have regained the overall lead but a mistake on the re-start sent him down an escape road and out of the points. Bottas had an afternoon to forget.

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FERRARI (Charles Leclerc 4, Carlos Sainz 8)

Leclerc secured pole position for the second race in a row, this time managing to start after failing to do so in Monaco. He led for the opening two laps, the first time a Ferrari driver had done so since 2019. Sainz went down the runoff at turn eight on lap 10, and had to reverse back out. Ferrari moved up to third, two points clear of McLaren.

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MCLAREN (Lando Norris 5, Daniel Ricciardo 9)

Norris started ninth after a three place grid penalty, and dropped three more on lap one before fighting back. He made two overtakes at the race re-start. Ricciardo started 13th. McLaren drop a place overall.

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ALPHATAURI (Pierre Gasly 3, Yuki Tsunoda 7)

Gasly started fourth and finished third after an intense battle with Leclerc after the re-start. The Frenchman reported an engine issue from halfway through that lost him some power on the straight. Tsunoda lost two places over the last two laps and finished where he started. AlphaTauri moved up to fifth overall.

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ASTON MARTIN (Sebastian Vettel 2, Lance Stroll retired)

Vettel started 11th and ended up with Aston Martin's first podium finish as a Formula One constructor. He gained two places at the start with the faster, soft tyres and then ran a long stint to get ahead of Tsunoda. He moved up to sixth when Stroll's tyre blew and the Canadian crashed out on lap 31 with a tyre blowout, bringing out the safety car for the first time. Vettel passed Leclerc and Gasly when the safety car came in and was third after Verstappen crashed.

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ALPINE (Fernando Alonso 6, Esteban Ocon retired)

Alonso climbed four places in the last two laps. Ocon's race ended on lap four when he suffered a sudden loss of power and retired in the pits. Alonso made an early pitstop for hard tyres on lap seven.

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ALFA ROMEO (Kimi Raikkonen 10, Antonio Giovinazzi 11)

Raikkonen doubled Alfa's points tally for the season so far and opened his own account. Giovinazzi made a good start, gaining five places. He made contact with Ricciardo at the re-start.

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HAAS (Mick Schumacher 13, Nikita Mazepin 14)

The pair raced each other to the finish, ending 0.074 apart. Mazepin said his brakes were overheating from the start. Schumacher passed Mazepin on the straight at the end, with the German unhappy with his team mate's defensive move.

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WILLIAMS (Nicholas Latifi 16, George Russell retired)

Russell retired with a gearbox issue before the re-start but was classified 17th. Latifi was given a 30 second post-race penalty for a safety car infraction caused by a wrong instruction from the team.

(Reporting by Alan Baldwin, editing by Toby Davis)