[asr245]

Wow! What an eventful race! Being a Williams fan I was as nervous as Horner (with his shaking leg) though Stroll couldn't keep second. Disappointed by that.

There really is no space to clear debris here without a SC. Kyat's car was stuck there for a few laps with no chance of removal until SC. Kimi's bad luck continues. Vettel really brought it on himself. Brake-testing maybe, but why bang wheels? I do feel they need to change rules about restarts after the SC. Maybe they should have green flags to restart (instead of the current SC crossing the SC line). I can bet Vettel is going to return the favor when he gets the chance.

PS: Alonso in points!

[jfxavier]

What a topsy turvy race this was.

Hopefully all complaints about a dull Baku race has been addressed today.


Refreshing to see RIC on top for a change.



Lance stroll made history today. He's the youngest rookie to race to a podium finish - 18 years and 239 days.


The face he made after tasting the Shoey....



It will be interesting to be a fly on the wall when Lewis meets Vettel today.
It was like being on the Indian roads.


I was laughing hard when HAM was requesting the team to ask BOT to back VET up for him to overtake.
Reminded me of last year when he backed Nico upto Vettel.

Seems like the Safety car was on more than it was off the race.


The championship standings as of now.

[mp417]

What a race. Have never seen safety car going in and coming out on the next lap. It was mayhem with cars touching each other and debris flying all over.

Force India could have won the race. They blew it. Stupid mistake to race your team mate and then hitting each other.

Vettel aggression was another stupid move and completely unnecessary. I feel 10 second penalty was not severe for what he did. He could have taken both of them out with that bash.

Hamilton - victim of instant karma Not sure whether he did the brake testing intentionally (at least it doesn't appear from replays) but he paid biggest price of the lot. I think race leader has every right to control the pace. Headrest getting loose and race leader holding the headrest while doing 350 kmph, never seen anything like this
Instant karma took the race away from him. Toto was so furious.

Bottas made the best recovery of them all. Off course safety car helped him but you cannot take away his heroic drive in last few laps. And his finish line lunge to grab 2nd is the only consolation for Mercedes. It can never get close like this.

Well done Stroll for becoming youngest driver to secure podium in rookie season.

Ricciardo was the luckiest of them all. The victory was handed over to him by others. Surprised to see the red bull brake issue did not impact him. He was there to take the race while others were hitting each other.

Alonso finally got the points for McLaren. Woo Hoo. A great driver in worst car.

[arun_josie]

It was an awesome race!A tricky track, but good to have one such track which can give us a eventful race.
Repeated safety car and red flag made the race very interesting. It created lot of overtaking opportunities which resulted in few crashes as well.
Force India lost a very good chance to grab some big points. Perez will be very disappointed as P1 was there for taking.
Probably after a long time, so many drivers were in contention for podium.
Vettel's move on Hamilton was really uncalled for, especially going side by side and banging wheels.
Unlucky Verstappen but Redbull got lucky with Ricciardo to bring home P1, this guy makes use of every given opportunity. And nice to see Alonso in points.

[deetjohn]

That was 10/10 for proper chaos!

Really happy for Ricciardo. He was in the right place at the right time and totally used it to his advantage. But he really should stop that shoey thingy. Its disgusting.

Gloves are off in the Lewis - Vettel fight now. They had kept it really civil and highly respectful. And I really hope it doesn't get ugly from here on now.

Coming to the incident, it was a very stupid move by Vettel. Whether he was brake tested or not, he shouldn't have run into Lewis. And I read that telemetry data showed that Lewis didn't brake or lift off drastically when it happened. So, Vettel was caught sleeping.

And in addition to the 10-second stop-go penalty, Vettel also got 3 penalty points on his race license. Which means Vettel now has a total of nine for the past 12 months and he is now just three points away from a race ban.

However, the two penalty points he got at last year's British Grand Prix, for running Felipe Massa off the track will expire on the Monday after the Austrian Grand Prix. Vettel will need to ensure he does not get any more penalty points at the Red Bull Ring.

And here is the race highlights.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zP3WOVR1-YU

[GTO]

Road Rage! What on earth was Vettel thinking? That he's driving on Mumbai roads? A part of me feels his act was shameful - very undeserving of a world champion. The other part of me thinks this masala is good for F1 . It's been a decade or two since we've seen such a level of rivalry .

After seeing the qualifying, I thought it'll be a boring track + race. Gosh, what a topsy turvy one it turned out to be.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOI2It_W3No

[sgiitk]

I think that Hamilton slowed down too much, resulting in his being rear ended by Vettel.

An enjoyable race, with too many interruptions. Some interruptions are good, but so many, incl a Red Flag incident. I do not like it.

[shibujp]

Baku was eventful. However I did not enjoy it as much as some of the other races. I seemed to be seeing more of people crashing into each other, loosing bits of their appendages rather than actual racing. The latter part of the race was more enjoyable with some actual racing. And true to the nature of the circuit it sparked off some bad blood between team members and rivals that is sure to spice up the melee going forward. How Force India handles the spat between Perez and Ocon will determine their ranking in the constructors fight this year.

"What dangerous driving?" this has to be the quote of the day from Vettel. With two committed championship rivals it was just a question of when the relationship would go south...in hindsight Vettel could have simply let it pass and would have been standing on the first step thanks to Hamilton's headrest.

Hamilton is a very very cunning racer, his gamesmanship hovering on that thin line between violation and pushing the envelope on what he can and cannot do. He has the talent to get away with it. It was the same with Senna. Rivals like Vettel react with what they've got in their armory. For all his quips about racing this was the guy who backed his rival into other teams in the last race in Abu Dhabi and then played the victim card. It is going to get dirty from here. However from Vettel's point of view a 10 second penalty might be fair exchange for getting his rival to think twice about his gamesmanship tactics the next time. Because for all the comparisons to Senna, Hamilton does not have the devil may care attitude that Senna had, and cares too deeply about loosing what he has to take it to the bleeding edge that Senna used to.

Originally Posted by jfxavier

I was laughing hard when HAM was requesting the team to ask BOT to back VET up for him to overtake.
Reminded me of last year when he backed Nico upto Vettel.

Hilarious no? Seems to think the whole world revolves round him. Thankfully the Mercedes team was sensible about it. Come to think of it was there any scenario when Hamilton helped his team mate similarly?

Stroll had a smashing race and the guy impressed me in Montreal and in Baku. He has proven he has the chops for F1.

What can Raikkonen do to catch a break? People crashing into him, running over debris meant a third place grid position materialise into a DNF. Another guy with a rotten streak is Max who seems to be the victim of every bug that the Renault engine catches.

This season is anything but boring!!

Drive on,
Shibu.

[Porschefire]

I'll be honest, I've not been following F1 for the longest time now. The last that I keenly watched was the 2004 season when Schumacher won his championship, vaguely remember Hamilton's first with McLaren and Button's only win with Brawn.
As on today, I know that Hamilton drives for Mercedes, Rosberg has retired, Ferrari hasn't won a championship in a decade or so, a good driver in Alonso is struggling with a bad McLaren and Force India is in the hands of two fraudulent owners.
This disinterest is mainly due to the fact that Formula 1 has got really boring over the seasons for me and I am an avid MotoGP watcher. MotoGP has much more tighter, interesting races with the danger element thrown due to two less wheels and my hopes for Rossi to win his 10th.

But when an opportunity arose that I was invited to watch the Baku GP from my colleague's balcony (which faced the racetrack), for free (yes, you read it right), I was not dumb enough to let it pass.


Red arrow indicating where I was seated.






The helicopter that covered the entire race.


A customary selfie. :-)

The key highlights from my point of view were:

- Street circuit racing is very difficult as the margin for error is very less.

- Witnessed Nico Hulkenberg's damaged front tyre and how he went off the track at turn 8.

- Red Bull Racing and Ferrari are the stand out cars in terms of the color and are easily noticeable. Haas, Sauber, Renault and to an extent Mercedes look very dull.

- Most of the mechanical noises - gear changes, Turbo, wheel spin are easily audible. The gear changes are equivalent to a soft thunder!!! Towards the end of the race, the McLaren's gear changes sounded like someone was drilling the earth with a very heavy equipment. Didn't sound pleasing.

- Biggest disappointment was the engine note, sounds very gruff and muted. It is definitely not bad but then it is not a symphony like the earlier V12/V10/V8s of yore. If you ask me, the Safety/Medical cars sound better (especially on the overrun). The Williams sounds very sweet at lower revs, almost like a V10.

- The drivers tend to spin the wheels when the safety car was deployed, maybe to generate heat in the tyres. The tyre smell was beautiful!

- I feel I had one of the best seats available (in terms of the view) but I hardly had any idea what was going on in the race. There was no screen on the track where I was seated and the TV in my colleague's house wasn't working.

- I was literally kicking my backside for not having the camera. I could've definitely got some very interesting close-up shots.

So, this was my first Formula 1 experience and while I enjoyed it thoroughly, I really think watching the race on the television is a better option. It is definitely not worth spending hundreds of dollars for the tickets and sitting in a spot where the cars look like tiny dots.

Will I watch F1 at the track again? Probably not.

Will I start watching F1 again? Maybe, if it doesn't clash with MotoGP, lol!

PS: I've a dozen videos but unable to figure out as to how to upload them.

[myavu]

Originally Posted by sgiitk

I think that Hamilton slowed down too much, resulting in his being rear ended by Vettel

He can do it, he is the lead driver. In the last SC period he did exact same thing. It was Vettel's fault to not keep enough gap with the lead driver. He deserved more (20 - 25 seconds stop-go) penalty or a 10 place grid penalty in Austria. A 4 time WC should never do that

[gtonsing]

What an incident filled race! Totally enjoyed the opportunities found and lost. Really gutted for the Force India team. A few micro seconds off the throttle could have resulted in atleast a P3, if not higher. I guess patience is the key for championships - knowing when to hold on, knowing when to play or fight.

But patience does not seem to come naturally to Vettel, a world Champion but singly from yesterdays event with Hamilton, he doesnt deserve to be a Champion, much less a world champion.

In hindsight, I think the race needs to be re-looked. A stopped car needing a Safety car to be removed, debris on track needing a stoppage sounds very unsafe - what if (God forbid) it was a bad accident and the driver was injured? It would have taken too much time to remove him.

[revvenant]

Irrespective of Hamilton's intentions in slowing down, Vettel had no business hitting him. That is just plain road rage.

Not good in a professional athlete with such pedigree. Sad to see him lose a potential pole position due to such dunderheadedness.

OTH: I think this track is more for showbiz than pure racing.

[SilentEngine]

Leave me Alone™ S17, E8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwJTfFKkWRA

[PuntoMania]

Vettel got away very very lightly there.

He intentionally plonked his car into Hamilton's, in most cases this would have resulted in an instant DSQ / black flag. For that matter, the stewards should have set an example, giving him the black flag and a good reason for him to calm down.

He's been off the hook far too many times in the past year or so, ranting on the radio, pushing Massa off track, moving under braking against Ricciardo last year. There is no doubt that it's good entertainment for the fans, but it's got to stop before he goes completely ballistic.

BTW, both Hamilton and Vettel are driving at a very different level this year compared to their teammates. It's turning out to be one titanic one on one battle.

[Mohan Mathew A]

The penalty for Vettel was too lenient in my view. You cannot let that kind of behaviour go so cheaply. I was wondering if indeed the rules stipulate only a 10 sec stop-go for this or was the steward being too lenient by the aura of the 4 time champion. I don't know what the rules state but that deserved an instant disqualification with maybe a one race ban. I am no Lewis fan but i think he has every right to be upset that vettel got away so easily. Absolutely unbecoming behaviour for any F1 driver forget a 4 time champion.

I was there in baku last year just 2 weeks before the inaugural race, it is a narrow street but definitely not as bad as Monaco, a lot of the delay in cleaning up and removing struck cars were due to the marshals being not well organised and probably inexperienced.