Adrian R. Huber |
Madrid (EFE) venue this weekend of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, the fourth of the Formula One World Championship and the first of the six that this year will have the new sprint format.
Unlike the last two years -those in which the sprint has been contested: then only three per season-, the positions of the reduced test will not define the grid for Sunday’s race. This Friday the first and only free practice will be held, hours before the qualification that will order the Sunday start formation; while Saturday will have an independent character: the morning will be used for qualifying that will decide how the afternoon sprint will start, which maintains the distribution of points -for the best eight- from last season; but it will not decide the grill on Sunday.
In the sprint they score 8, but their result no longer orders the Sunday grid
The winner of the reduced race, as during last year -in 2021 only three scored- will score eight points, the second will add seven; and the third, six: so on until the eighth, which will add one unit to your general account.
Friday’s qualification will be the usual one -with three elimination rounds of 18, fifteen and twelve minutes-, but the ‘quali’ that will define Saturday’s grid will be reduced: the first round (Q1) will last twelve minutes; the second, ten; and the third, eight. And it will be mandatory to run with medium compound tires in Q1 and Q2; and with soft tires in Q3.
Alonso, a great entertainer with three out of three and 101 podiums in F1
Alonso, 41, confirming what he commented in an interview with Efe the season of his return to F1 -after two out of it in which he won, among others, the World Endurance Championship (WEC)-, that “the important thing is It is not the age, but the stopwatch ”, has become the great sensation of the start of the course. And among his many followers, inside and outside Spain, he has made 33 fashionable: the number he would reach with a new victory; ten years after the thirty-second, that of 2013 at the Spanish Grand Prix.
After impressing in the pre-season tests in Bahrain, the double world champion from Asturias (2005 and 2006) has been on the podium three times in his first three races with Aston Martin, his new team. And he occupies third place in the championship, 24 points out of the 69 with which Verstappen commands -a candidate for a third title in a row-, which leads ‘Czech’ by fifteen.
F1 resumes after almost four weeks without activity, after the Australian Grand Prix; which he won, with a crazy outcome and two restarts, ahead of the seven-time English world champion Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes) and Alonso – who completed a luxury podium, his 101st drawer -, Verstappen.
After raising his number of victories in F1 to 36, ‘Mad Max’ -25 years old- leads with a 31-point advantage over Hamilton -thirteen years older than him and whom he dethroned two years ago-, fourth in a contest in the that the Spanish Carlos Sainz (Ferrari) occupies fifth place, with 20 points: the same as the other Mercedes driver, the Englishman George Russell.
Red Bull’s dominance, unquestionable at the start of 2023
Mercedes, which, for the first time in the past nine seasons, failed to win the Constructors’ World Championship last – in favor of Red Bull – seems to be picking up the pace. But the dominance of the powerful Austrian team is unquestionable in these early stages of the championship. In which Aston Martin, led by the brilliant Asturian driver, has made the greatest qualitative leap; and it has gone from being the seventh car to occupying second place by teams.
Ferrari, the most successful team in history, has not had a good start to the year. Sainz, who touched Alonso on the second start in Melbourne and was penalized with a five-second penalty that not only took fourth place from him, but also took him out of the points, keeps the guy waiting for improvements.
Ferrari’s appeal for Sainz’s sanction in Melbourne was dismissed
The ‘Scuderia’ filed an appeal against Sainz’s sanction, which was dismissed last week by the FIA (International Automobile Federation), so the son of the double Spanish world rally champion of the same name maintained fifth place in the World Cup and he couldn’t get away from Russell, who has the same points as him.
His partner, the Monegasque Charles Leclerc, retired in Bahrain and Australia, has only added six points and is tenth in the World Cup.
In the Constructors’ World Championship, the team that he now leads – replacing the Italian-Swiss Mattia Binotto – the French Frederic Vasseur does not go beyond fourth place, almost one hundred points out of the 126 with which Red Bull leads, which leads by 58 over Aston Martin and in 67 to Mercedes.
The other five sprints of 2023, in Austria, Belgium, Qatar, the USA and Brazil
Baku hosts the first of the six Grand Prix with the new sprint format recently approved to be released this season. The following will be in Austria, Belgium, Qatar, the United States and Brazil.
The capital of Azerbaijan made its debut on the calendar, as the European Grand Prix, in 2016. With the victory of the German Nico Rosberg -the year he would end up winning the title-, ahead of his compatriot Sebastian Vettel and ‘Czech’, who achieved that day the first of the four podiums that he signed in one of his ‘talisman’ circuits.
Since then, and with the exception of 2020 (which was not played, due to the covid-19 pandemic), the Grand Prix has been on the calendar with the name of the country.
“Czech”: a victory and another three podiums in Baku
‘Checo’ was third again in 2018, a year before achieving what at that time was his second victory in F1 -the first with Red Bull-; in a race with a crazy ending that was resolved in one lap -in which Alonso advanced four places to finish sixth- after the ‘Mad Max’ accident. That he led the ‘double’ for the Austrian team last year, winning ahead of the brave driver from Guadalajara, winner this course in Saudi Arabia.
In Australia, ‘Checo’ starred in the great comeback and was chosen ‘Driver of the Day’ after, after going off in Q3, he faced the start from the ‘pit lane’ and finished fifth. In Baku, one of his ‘talisman’ tracks, the Mexican -successful on urban circuits- will seek, at least, to get on his twenty-ninth podium. In a circuit in which it will not be necessary to rule out the entry of the safety car, nor the decree of a red flag.
Fourth longest circuit, with the longest straight and below sea level
The urban circuit of Baku, 6,003 meters long, the fourth longest in the championship (it was the third, but this year it will be surpassed by the rookie from Las Vegas, USA), has twenty turns -12 to the left and eight to the right -, two DRS zones, one of the longest straights in the World Championship, 2.2 kilometers long, and some of the narrowest zones.
On the only track in the World Championship that is below sea level (Baku is 28 meters below) tires from the softest range of compounds will be used: C3 -hard, recognizable by the white stripe-, C4 -medium, yellow stripe- and C5 -soft, red-. Starting this Friday, when the only free practice and qualifying for Sunday is played.
On Saturday, what has been said: another timed reduced (‘sprint shootout’, in English); in the morning, to order the grill for the evening sprint.
Six different winners in six races held
The Sunday race is scheduled for 51 laps, to complete a 306-kilometre route. The sprint on Saturday, over a third of that distance; that is to say: 17 turns for something more than one hundred kilometers.
Baku has never won again. On the six occasions that it has run in the capital of the former Soviet republic that bathes the Caspian Sea, six different winners have been registered. Among the assets, apart from Pérez and ‘Mad Max’, Hamilton and the Finn Valtteri Bottas (Alfa Romeo) -when he was a teammate of the former at Mercedes, the most successful in Azerbaijan- have climbed to the top of the podium.
Alonso and Sainz face the weekend confident that this trend will continue.