Verstappen fourth at Azerbaijan Grand Prix: 'Pace is promising'

Published on 28 April 2019 by Mike Motilall

Max Verstappen came in fourth at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix. The Dutchman, who started the race in Baku in the same position, lost a spot to Sergio Perez in the early stages.  A few laps later, he regained his initial position. Verstappen then drove a solid race and is able to add twelve points to his tally now. Valtteri Bottas took the chequered flag, ahead of his team mate Lewis Hamilton. Making this the fourth back-to-back one-two for the German team. Sebastian Vettel rounded up the podium on behalf of Ferrari.

“I lost a bit of behind Perez, but I didn’t want to take any risk in the first lap”, says Max after the race. “I couldn’t brake very late as well, because I had a car in front of me. It was a bit of shame, but I think the pace we showed on the medium tyre afterwards was good. We were catching the top-three, I think, seven or eight seconds compared to them. That is very promising.”

The pace after the virtual safety car, triggered by Pierre Gasly dropping out, was not there anymore: “After the virtual safety car, we didn’t have the grip and temperature, and around here that’s key. I couldn’t push anymore, and didn’t want to take any risk to close the gap. We decided to bring home the fourth spot. P4 is reasonably good.”

Looking ahead at Barcelona, the Dutchman concludes: “I’m curious what it will bring. We are not the only ones bringing upgrades so hopefully we’ll be really competitive.”

Under a clear blue sky, round four of the season gets underway. Sergio Perez gets well off the line and passes Max Verstappen, taking fourth place from the Dutchman. Valtteri Bottas is also immediately put under pressure by his team mate, but manages to keep his own and after a surprising damage free first lap, emerges as the race leader.

Max manages to close the gap to Perez in the following laps. On lap six, the Dutchman gets close enough to the Racing Point to make little work of it, for fourth, at the end of the straight.

On lap seven, Daniil Kvyat is the first to do a stop and gets a set of the mediums strapped on to his Toro Rosso. Race leader Valtteri Bottas, by then, has managed to build a lead of almost four second to his team mate Lewis Hamilton. Sebastian Vettel, Max Verstappen, Charles Leclerc and Sergio Perez all round up the top six at that moment.

In the meantime, Leclerc is on a push forward. The Monegasque is, after his crash in qualifying yesterday, on a brand new set of the medium compound tyre. This enables him to take fourth from Max Verstappen on the straight on lap ten.

Verstappen reports to the pits on lap fifteen and he switches to the yellow striped tyre. He rejoins right behind of team mate Pierre Gasly, who still needs to pit, in sixth place. But it doesn’t take too long before he assumes fifth from his team mate.

Halfway the race, the top six is formed by: Leclerc, Bottas, Hamilton, Vettel, Verstappen and Gasly. Both Leclerc and Gasly still need to make a pit stop. Having started on the medium tyres they are able to continue on longer. By then, Verstappen has gone purple and has the fastest lap time firmly in his hands.

At the front, both Mercedes and Sebastian Vettel are gaining on race leader Charles Leclerc. On lap thirty, the gap between the four drivers is down to only five second. Valtteri Bottas seizes the opportunity and not too long afterwards he overtakes the Monegasque.

Two laps later, things go sour between Daniel Ricciardo and Daniil Kvyat. The always smiling Ozzie tries to pass the Toro-driver, but locks up causing both to miss the corner. Ricciardo wants to return back to the track but then hits Kvyat while backing up. Despit the fact that the impact wasn’t huge, we see both drivers report back to their teams not much later. This makes them the first drop outs of the day.

After his pit stop, Leclerc drops back to P5, moving Verstappen one spot up to fourth. Ahead of the Dutchman are Sebastian Vettel, Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas.

With still twelve laps to go, we see Pierre Gasly drop out as a result of a technical issue. Because the Frenchman’s RB15 is not positioned that well on the circuit, a brief virtual safety car period follows. During the VSC-period, Romain Grosjean returns back to the pits with issues as well. By now the amount of drop outs has a total of four.

In the closing stages of the race, Lewis Hamilton gets his head down and is preparing to launch an attack on his team mate. The Briton falls short however to really become a threat to Bottas. The Finn wins a second race of the season and takes over the lead in the championship standings again. Max Verstappen finishes fourth, with Sebastian Vettel ahead of him. Sergio Perez, Carlos Sainz, Lando Norris, Lance Stroll and Kimi Raikkonen all round up the top ten.

Starting Grid Azerbaijan: