Grand Prix of Azerbaijan 2017

During the first part of the free races active work of the teams began half an hour after the start of the session due to the slippery asphalt. Toro Rosso cars appeared on the track an hour after the start of training. Asphalt condition caused several pilot errors. 20 minutes before the end of the session, the car crashed Sergio Perez , after which the training was interrupted for 14 minutes. The best time during the first practice showed Max Verstappen on Red Bull ^[1] .

The second part of the free races took place under conditions close to those in which qualification and race will be held. The teams worked on the evaluation of the effectiveness and degree of wear rubber. The practice was interrupted for eight minutes due to the accident of Jolyon Palmer . McLaren ran into technical problems - Fernando Alonso refused to use a gearbox. The best time for the second session of the free races left at Max Verstappen ^[1] .

In the course of the Saturday part of the free races of the team continued to work on the tires. The second training session in a row was lost by Jolyon Palmer, whose car caught fire due to fuel leakage. Because of problems with hydraulics, only seven laps could drive through Sebastian Vettel . The best time in the third session was shown by Valtteri Bottas ^[2] .

Weather: I see. Dry. Air +26 ° C, highway + 47… 43 ° C

After the start, Hamilton kept the lead, and Bottas, in turn, fought with Kimi Raikkonen. However, in the second turn, Bottas made a mistake and touched Raikkonen, as a result of which Raikkonen lost a couple of places, and Bottas got a puncture and was forced to go to pitlane. As a result, the championship leader Vettel was able to come in second place. Perez had a very good start, as he climbed to third place. And in the depths of Peleton Kvyat is mistaken in the first turn and returns to the track directly in front of Carlos Sainz, because of which the Spaniard turned around. After the first round, the first ten looked like this: Hamilton - Vettel - Perez - Verstappen - Raikkonen - Massa - Okon - Stroll - Riccardo - Hulkenberg. Bottas only to the second circle managed to get to the pit lane, where he changed tires and changed the nose fairing. Bottas returned to the track with a lag on the circle from the whole of the back of the field.

On the 8th, 10th and 11th circles, respectively, due to technical problems, Palmer, Kvyat and Verstappen got off. Due to the fact that the car Kvyat was in a place difficult for the crane, a pace car appeared on the track. During the pace car racers complained about the difficulty with warming up the tires. On the 16th circle, the pace-car was removed, but already around it, the pace-car appeared again, since there were a lot of debris on the track. During the pace car, Vettel did not calculate the speed and forged a slow-moving Hamilton and after that he deliberately forged it on the left side.

On the 20th round the next restart was given. In the fight against Vettel, Mass, Okon and Perez, Windows knocks over Perez and as a result of this, both Indian Force cars are seriously damaged. In turn, Raikkonen ran over one of the fragments and received a puncture of the rear right wheel. Reaching the boxes, Perez and Raikkonen gone. As a result, the Pekkar appeared on the track for the third time. During peyskar first ten looked like this: Hamilton - Vettel - Massa - Stroll - Riccardo - Hulkenberg - Magnussen - Alonso - Sainz - Grosjean. On lap 22, the race was stopped due to a large amount of debris on the track.

After some time, the race was resumed under the safety car. Also in the race returned Perez and Raikkonen, who were soon punished by driving through the pit lane for servicing the car in the wrong place. After the next restart, the leaders retained their positions, Riccardo broke into third place, and Massa began to lose speed and position. In the struggle of Massa, Hulkenberg and Magnussen, Hulkenberg gets around Massa, but Magnussen passes both of them, and after a while Hulkenberg breaks the front right wheel and comes off with Massa, who drove to the pits.

For the incident with Hamilton Vettel was punished with a 10-second Stop & Go. At the same time, Hamilton had a problem with the poorly fixed part of the headrest. The driver was unable to correct the problems on his own and was forced to roll into the pits, where he lost some time. Back on the track, Hamilton was stuck in traffic and began to lose time. After some time, Vettel went to serve his sentence and returned just before Hamilton. The top ten at the time: Riccardo - Stroll - Magnussen - Windows - Alonso - Bottas - Vettel - Hamilton - Sainz - Grosjean.

From that moment until the end of the race, Bottas, Vettel and Hamilton alternately overtook Magnussen, Okon and Alonso while exchanging fast circles. In between times, Perez and Raikkonen came down a second time due to technical problems. Toward the end of the race, Bottas began to rapidly catch up with Stroll, who was in second place, and was able to get ahead of him at the very finish.

As a result, the victory was won by Riccardo, in the second place Bottas, and Stroll won the last stage of the podium for the first time. Behind him, 2 championship leaders Vettel and Hamilton, behind them, Okon, Magnussen, Sainz finished half a minute behind. We closed the points zone Alonso, who scored the first points of the season for the McLaren team, and Wehrlein scored points for the second time.

Lead Circles

• Official site
• https://www.bakucitycircuit.com
• Pirelli.com - Azerbaijan Grand Prix Race