Crazy. You can be more effusive in your attempt to describe the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, the eighth round of the 2017 FIA Formula 1 World Championship, but the the word 'crazy' just seems as apt as it is succinct. Would you have predicted Red Bull-Renault's Daniel Ricciardo becoming the fourth different winner of this exciting F1 season? Didn't think so. How about Lance Stroll becoming the youngest F1 rookie to score a podium? Yeah, the race was that unpredictable.
Indeed after qualifying there was little indication of the unpredictability that followed in the 51-lap race around the 20-turn, 6.003km Baku City Circuit.
A 1-2 for Mercedes AMG F1, led by Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas, seemed to be the recipe for a difficult weekend for championship rivals Ferrari and Sebastian Vettel. Although Vettel maintained that there was good race pace to be had for Sunday, it seemed like a tall order. Especially as the German would have to contend with teammate Kimi Raikkonen too, who qualified ahead of him.
That was taken care of at the start itself, however, as Raikkonen and Bottas' battle to get second place ended with the Mercedes driver bouncing over the kerb at the second corner and bouncing into the Ferrari of his compatriot.
It was Bottas who came out worse in that incident as heavy damage to his front wing and a puncture on the right-front tyre lead to a pit-stop that put him dead last.
With the two Finns battling, Vettel assumed second place and did all he could to stay within reach of Hamilton who seemed to be controlling the race with a cushion of around 3 seconds over the German.
THINGS GET CRAZY
The straight fight between Hamilton and Vettel was first interrupted by Toro Rosso-Renault's Daniil Kvyat having to stop on track due to a technical failure on lap 11, which brought out the safety car.
During this time, Max Verstappen was also looking strong and pressurizing Force India-Mercedes' Sergio Perez for third but a loss of oil pressure put an end to his race.
The safety car period ended on lap 16, at which point Hamilton was able to blast away from Vettel, who came under threat from Perez before he was able to get back to chasing Hamilton. However, the safety car was brought out once again as the jostling for positions saw debris fly off cars and prompted the marshalls to do a quick clean-up operation.
VETTEL GETS NASTY
It was at this point that a bizzare and aggressive turn of events took place between Vettel and Hamilton as the German hit the Briton from behind while the cars were running behind the safety car. Visibly annoyed with Hamilton, the Ferrari driver pulled alongside the Mercedes at its left and swerved right to ram into its wheels.
It was a move that would later come back to bite Vettel as he was forced to take a ten-second stop-and-go penalty for dangerous driving during his second pit stop.
Prior to that point in the race, however, Vettel was forced to defend from surprise front-runners Felipe Massa of Williams-Mercedes and Perez when the race got underway again.
ANOTHER TWIST
The race was not done serving up surprises, however, as Esteban Ocon tried to take fourth place from his Force India teamate Perez and his attempt resulted in the two coming together and Perez crashing out. The debris from the collision lead to a right-rear puncture for Raikkonen, at which point the race was red-flagged while the track was cleaned up.
A 20-minute period of inactivity where the cars went back to the pitlane and some repairs were carried out lead to Bottas getting back on to the lead lap and Ricciardo recovering from an early stop when he had to get debris cleared from his car's brake ducts.
When the race was restarted, Hamilton and Vettel were still in the lead but Ricciardo had managed to jump ahead of Massa and the other Williams-Mercedes of Stroll.
UNEXPECTED ENDING
It was at this point that things really took a turn that no one saw coming. A loose headrest in Hamilton's cockpit led to the team calling him in to put in a new one before it blew off his car. The Briton had been physically holding it down on the long straights of the circuit as the rush of air tried to pry it loose.
It looked like the turn of events had handed the win to Vettel until the German was asked to serve the afore mentioned stop-and-go penalty for intentionally ramming into Hamilton. The penalty also means he has nine penalty points against his F1 super-license. One more point, and he will be forced to sit out one race.
With both the championship rivals making unexpected pit stops, Ricciardo's monster late-braking maneuver had paid off and given him the lead, which he was able to hold till the end of the race.
Stroll looked on course for second until a recovering Bottas picked off the cars ahead of him to snatch the place from the Canadian by just 0.104 seconds. A further 1.969 seconds behind Stroll, Vettel was able to hold on to fourth by just 0.212 seconds from Hamilton. The long and wide main straight played its part in allowing cars to get close enough to attempt overtaking moves at the start-finish line.
So Vettel was unexpectedly able to extend his points lead over Vettel by two points to 14 while Bottas has managed to close to within 28 points of Hamilton. With his fourth straight trip to the podium - and his fifth career F1 win - Daniel Ricciardo is 19 points behind Bottas in the standings.
Stroll's second straight points scoring finish and first ever podium sees him shoot up to 12th in the standings.
Behind the top five, Ocon took sixth, Haas-Ferrari's Kevin Magnussen took seventh, Toro Rosso-Renault's Carlos Sainz was eighth, Fernando Alonso took McLaren-Honda's first points of the season with ninth and Sauber-Ferrari's Pascal Wehrlein was tenth.
The championship resumes in two weeks time with the Austrian Grand Prix.
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