Baku: Opportunity For Red Bull To Pull Ahead

The first team other than Mercedes to lead the world championship since 2014, can Red Bull create some daylight between them and the defending champs on the streets of Azerbaijan?

04/05/2021

Ravin Batra

A common complaint of the casual formula 1 viewer is that it is too predictable and car centric. Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes have dominated the turbo hybrid era that began in 2014. The recently knighted British driver has won 6 of the last 7 drivers championships and helped the German team to all 7 of the constructors titles in this era. 2021 however marks the start of exciting times for the sport. The introduction of a cost cap, regulations for reduced downforce and reduced wind tunnel testing times- has been applauded as a move towards making the racing more competitive. The first 5 rounds of this year's championship have proved that to be true. While Hamilton leads “number one contender” Max Verstappen 3-2 in terms of race wins, the duo have had on-track battles in each of the first four races. This is already a step up on what was a pretty dominant season for Mercedes in 2020- facing virtually no trouble on or off the track. The season’s 5th and most famous race of the season in Monaco saw Verstappen cruise to an easy win as Hamilton struggled to get his Mercedes going on the famous streets- only finishing 7th and thus conceding the lead of the world championship. As the travelling circus moves to Baku this weekend, Verstappen and team will have to contend with being frontrunners for the first time in their recent history.

First brought onto the calendar in 2016, Baku has always given fans a thrilling race. 2017 saw the two most successful drivers on the grid- Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel come together under the safety car whilst Australian Daniel Riccirado overtook 3 cars on the main straight on his way to claim victory after the two world champions were pushed down the order with penalties. The following year saw more safety car drama and a thrilling end to the race where Finnish Valtteri Bottas’ tyre blew up with three laps to spare, gifting his teammate Hamilton the victory. 2019 saw Bottas get his redemption with a comfortable win on the fast streets of Azerbaijan.

The track offers just about everything fans would like to see in a circuit. Tight corners, harsh braking points, blind corners and open-high speed straights- this track is a true test of driver’s ability. Mercedes team boss and CEO Toto Wolff stated that his team might continue to struggle as they did in Monaco stating “while it's a very different street circuit to Monaco, we expect it to be another tricky one for us, not particularly suiting the characteristics and traits of the W12”. He went on to add that Red Bull will be strong again, while both Ferrari and McLaren have made great progress recently”.

With the team boss fearing another struggle, Hamilton characteristically played down the chance of a win this week. Max Verstappen however was vary that this could all just be mind games to induce complacency in what is a 23 race long championship.

Whilst all parties play down their chances, this is realistically Red Bull’s biggest opportunity to pounce on a struggling Mercedes and build a considerable gap in both the drivers and constructors championships. With new car regulations set to be introduced again in 2022, this could be the beginning of the changing of guard in Formula 1.

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