Baku's greatest hits: why the Azerbaijan GP is F1's most exciting street race

Delicately poised. The sentiment fits Azerbaijan’s tricky stance on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as much as the battle for the 2022 Formula 1 world championship. The oil-rich state has long-established close ties to both countries and while it chose not to vote at all in the UN resolution to condemn the war back in March, Baku has since reportedly sent significant humanitarian aid to Ukraine, as acknowledged with gratitude by President Zelensky.

So F1 arrives in this part of the world in particularly sensitive times. Should drivers and F1’s leading lights choose to show their opposition to Russia’s abhorrent actions this weekend, their actions would carry a particular potency.

But here, let’s turn to surer sporting ground, at a time when the world championship is itself in a precarious state of balance. Ferrari and Charles Leclerc should be in the ascendency, only for Maranello to have seriously undermined its own campaign in recent weeks, while at Red Bull Sergio Perez has loomed surprisingly into contention to give Max Verstappen an unexpected prod. Now ‘Checo’ heads for what has largely been a happy hunting ground for him in the five previous grands prix runs on the streets of Baku.

The race in Azerbaijan has yet to spring a repeat winner and by its nature lends itself to high drama. Picking through the main talking points from each race run so far supports the assertion that Baku is now established as F1’s most exciting street race and – uncomfortable real-world political sensitivities aside – should be approached this week with some relish.

2016: Rosberg’s ‘grand slam’

The first visit to Baku, named the European Grand Prix even if Azerbaijan’s geographical location stretched the term to its regional limits, was something of a disappointment in the wake of expectations for street-track chaos. Instead, safety car pilot Bernd Mayländer was left unemployed for the afternoon. This was the season when Lewis Hamilton was taken aback to find Mercedes team-mate Nico Rosberg proving himself a genuine threat that aggravatingly wouldn’t go away – and the German marked Baku’s F1 debut with an all too comfortable ‘grand slam’: pole position, led every lap, fastest lap to boot.

Hamilton, in contrast, screwed up qualifying, hit the Turn 12 wall and started in P10 – rising only to fifth in the race when he found himself stuck in an engine mode he didn’t want and had to figure out how to fix alone because of a ‘restricted communications’ rule on radio information that had F1 with a bee in its bonnet at the time.

Sebastian Vettel was second for Ferrari, with Perez rising from seventh on the grid to his second third-place podium in three races. It was a decent recovery from Checo, who should have started his silver Force India second but for a gearbox-change grid penalty, a consequence of a crash in Saturday morning practice. Look at those 2016 cars through today’s eyes, with their narrow track and tall rear wings and they look like slightly over-sized Formula 3 cars. They haven’t aged well.

2017: When Ricciardo was majestic

It was a different story for the first Azerbaijan GP, as Baku provided all the collisions, safety car dramas and a red flag interruption that had been expected the first time around. There was even a spot of unseemly road rage from Vettel – almost unthinkable from the zen-like, serene Aston Martin driver we know today.