2022 Azerbaijan Grand Prix - Baku, June 10 - 12

[zibby43]

Quite right, thank you Organic. Put the tribal fighting away, folks, keep it respectful and polite.

Anyone in the region check out the weekend forecast yet?

[codetower]

Looks like Leclerc going back to PU2 for Baku with a new Turbo and new MGU-H. Is RBR still using their first PU? I would imagine they'd bring in #2 for this race.

[organic]

Looks like Leclerc going back to PU2 for Baku with a new Turbo and new MGU-H. Is RBR still using their first PU? I would imagine they'd bring in #2 for this race.

It will be race 8 for Max's power unit if he doesn't opt for a new one; Honda changed to their 2nd unit at race 7 last year which was also Baku. I would expect them to pull #2 out.

Yes I think I read Charles' new unit was fine apart from TC and MGUH so I'd agree with that prediction

[Chuckjr]

Ahh Baku...always a favorite.

I’m hoping Checo can conjure some Senna power this weekend and take a win. Right now he needs to make a strong statement, and make an intentional move towards the championship. He needs to do to Max what Webber was never able to do to Vettel. Checo needs to make that move this weekend. Right friggin now. Get into the zone and knock every session out of the park. He needs to see himself winning this thing and not see himself as second fiddle — even if everyone thinks he is. He can out qualify and out drive Max, and if he does he can get one finger planted firmly on that DC trophy. The psychological fallout at Red Bull would be monumental. Yes I know, dare to dream.

The Ferrari still bounces like a bronco, so that may be the one thing that keeps them from beating Red Bull over the entire race. They certainly can out qualify the RB over a lap, but I think the RB smoothness is, at the end of the day, going to hand the beat downs to that Ferrari like Russell is doing to Hammy. Ferrari really needs to get the bouncing to stop. Really. Come on! The bouncing is so bad I think I heard Sainz in an interview jokingly say he wanted hazard pay. Lol.

Hats off to Russell for the bang up job he’s doing exposing his teammate. Russell’s ability to extract speed out of the turd pod design has been impressive. I personally think the design is fundamentally flawed, but it will take the year to find out if that is true. Nobody can say it is, or is not, finally, so we will find out eventually. Nevertheless, the job Russell is doing hustling that jacked design to points scoring positions reminds me a little bit of what Schumi was doing when he started driving for Ferrari in 96’ in that pos 310 with its huge boat anchor side pods.

Russell, like Schumi back in the day, seems to be on fire and much more determined than his team mate to win, and I give him credit for working and trying harder. Not only is he spanking ham bone in the championship, he’s ahead of Sainz in the Ferrari !?! How is this even possible? Extremely impressive, George!

[dialtone]

Ahh Baku...always a favorite.

I’m hoping Checo can conjure some Senna power this weekend and take a win. Right now he needs to make a strong statement, and make an intentional move towards the championship. He needs to do to Max what Webber was never able to do to Vettel. Checo needs to make that move this weekend. Right friggin now. Get into the zone and knock every session out of the park. He needs to see himself winning this thing and not see himself as second fiddle — even if everyone thinks he is. He can out qualify and out drive Max, and if he does he can get one finger planted firmly on that DC trophy. The psychological fallout at Red Bull would be monumental. Yes I know, dare to dream.

The Ferrari still bounces like a bronco, so that may be the one thing that keeps them from beating Red Bull over the entire race. They certainly can out qualify the RB over a lap, but I think the RB smoothness is, at the end of the day, going to hand the beat downs to that Ferrari like Russell is doing to Hammy. Ferrari really needs to get the bouncing to stop. Really. Come on! The bouncing is so bad I think I heard Sainz in an interview jokingly say he wanted hazard pay. Lol.

Hats off to Russell for the bang up job he’s doing exposing his teammate. Russell’s ability to extract speed out of the turd pod design has been impressive. I personally think the design is fundamentally flawed, but it will take the year to find out if that is true. Nobody can say it is, or is not, finally, so we will find out eventually. Nevertheless, the job Russell is doing hustling that jacked design to points scoring positions reminds me a little bit of what Schumi was doing when he started driving for Ferrari in 96’ in that pos 310 with its huge boat anchor side pods.

Russell, like Schumi back in the day, seems to be on fire and much more determined than his team mate to win, and I give him credit for working and trying harder. Not only is he spanking ham bone in the championship, he’s ahead of Sainz in the Ferrari !?! How is this even possible? Extremely impressive, George!

You sure about that Ferrari and the bronco?

[Schippke]

Cannot not see anything other than a Red Bull 1,2 for qualifying and the race if all goes as planned... which it usually doesn't in Baku!

Ferrari might be quick in S2, but that alone won't be enough to tackle Red Bull in S1 and S3 with nowhere to overtake... even then Red Bull was quick enough in Monaco so it won't be much of an advantage anyway.

Will be interesting to see how Mercedes go here too... if they're making progress on their purposing, they should be plenty quick enough on the straight... maybe not enough in S2 though.

[langedweil]

Given Per's private noise around partying a little too hard combined with his sudden media rise to be a possible WDC contender with only 2 career wins, it's not unthinkable he may become a little over-confident and trash the car up somehow.
WDC on paper is racking up wins or good points, in reality pressure turns out to be a real dick running around in your head.

Hope not, but we'll see ..

[Cuky]

Baku is Perez's best track throughout his career & also where he was closest to Max last year. I'm predicting Sainz behind Perez!

I predict Sainz and Perez having a coming together at some point during the weekend. Apparently that is what Sainz does when he can't find a gravel trap

Too much Sainz slander... When was the last time Sainz was at fault in a collision ?? His defence against Perez in Miami was very clean.

Not slander, just a joke.

[Wouter]

[Juzh]

Ferrari definitely for pole if red bull has no upgrades, race however is anyone's game and will probably come down to who can best handle any given tyre. On this track if you're something like 2 tenths faster than the car ahead then overtake is more or less guaranteed. Actually I think this year it'll be impossible to defend a position when the cars can follow at half the distance they used to. Unless lead car can get out of slipstream (more than 2s) in first lap I don't see how anyone will be able to run away before DRS comes online.

It'll be interesting to see if ferrari had really solved their top speed problems from previous races with their new DRS flap. It won't help them defend, but will enable them to re-overtake if they find themselves in such position, something they were unable to do so far.

[Spoutnik]

Wonder what will be the top speed with these car (in qualy and with slipstream during race)

[chrisc90]

Wonder if we will see some more engines introduced into the pool this race.

[nico5]

Just a post to point out that 70% of Baku's full throttle section is gonna be run without DRS where, not that it's news, the performance of RB and Ferrari is indeed very similar, unlike many here seem to believe probably on the back of listening to the array of super competent media we get in F1 (and despite the evidence that's been provided here as well).

In Melbourne Fer and RB were both running their medium df RW, with Ferrari's arguably being a slightly lower df spec than RB's (Fer's got more camber and max height but RB is way less trimmed closer to the endplate and with a larger full-height section).


Given the very few long no-DRS section we're left with nowadays, that seems the right place to look if one's to see how they stack up in a straight line in qualy and race (balanced ERS deployment strats) trim.

Q:


Race:


Ferrari look like they have more energy available than Honda on a longer stint, as the straightline deficit consistently shrinks between Q and race, not just here but on most of the other tracks we've been so far; more recently even in Spain w the high df packages.

In Miami, Ferrari ran the same RW spec as Australia and any other race since Jeddah, while RB went with the lower df spec from Jeddah (and Melbourne FP1), whereas in Imola and from FP2 in Aus they went back to their medium df spec from Bahrain. Still, Ferrari looked pretty competitive in race trim even with a ridiculous amount of useless rear df and drag.



I think Ferrari's main obvious mistake in setting up the car this season has been electing to protect the rears as they would have to do with pre-2022 Pirellis, rather than the fronts, and by doing that generating massive understeer at low speed both in Imola and Miami (0.2 to 0.4 lost on average in S2 when they were purple in qualy). I mean I get it if you do it in Bahrain, but Imola already should have acted as a wake-up call. Instead, same s**t in Miami (I think they said something about having changed their mind after looking at the roughness of the track) and even in Barcelona on friday.
Last year they got smashed in Baku from pole (and France after that) for not doing just that, i.e. going for a pointy setup and overheating the rears straight out of the box (then they spent two races in Austria f*****g up their qualis to somewhat cure that), but it's also gotta be said that when the issue in Baku is not overheating the rears it's the exact opposite one, front end warm-up and graining. Perhaps getting a 1.1s beating from Merc in 2017's qualy (to then cry over oil burning TDs) and doing the whole race with cold fronts in 2019 are equally powerful reminders for them not to dig their own hole once more. One never knows with Ferrari... RB do learn from their mistakes quite quickly. Missed a shot at a win in Melbourne with graining, won the following two by the taste of the same medicine. If Ferrari want to have a shot at RB (and Merc from next year or maybe even Silverstone already), it's not just about strategies.

[JPower]

I think Ferrari's main obvious mistake in setting up the car this season has been electing to protect the rears as they would have to do with pre-2022 Pirellis, rather than the fronts, and by doing that generating massive understeer at low speed both in Imola and Miami (0.2 to 0.4 lost on average in S2 when they were purple in qualy). I mean I get it if you do it in Bahrain, but Imola already should have acted as a wake-up call. Instead, same s**t in Miami (I think they said something about having changed their mind after looking at the roughness of the track) and even in Barcelona on friday.
Last year they got smashed in Baku from pole (and France after that) for not doing just that, i.e. going for a pointy setup and overheating the rears straight out of the box (then they spent two races in Austria f*****g up their qualis to somewhat cure that), but it's also gotta be said that when the issue in Baku is not overheating the rears it's the exact opposite one, front end warm-up and graining. Perhaps getting a 1.1s beating from Merc in 2017's qualy (to then cry over oil burning TDs) and doing the whole race with cold fronts in 2019 are equally powerful reminders for them not to dig their own hole once more. One never knows with Ferrari... RB do learn from their mistakes quite quickly. Missed a shot at a win in Melbourne with graining, won the following two by the taste of the same medicine. If Ferrari want to have a shot at RB (and Merc from next year or maybe even Silverstone already), it's not just about strategies.

Interesting assessment. Ferrari definitely had front warm up issues all through the weekend in Baku last year.

There has to be some reason for protecting the rears on Ferrari's side though. Maybe they believe the tire wear would become untenable otherwise.

[Wouter]