Azerbaijan GP data: How McLaren got their sweet revenge on Ferrari in Baku

After suffering a tough defeat in Italy to Charles Leclerc and Ferrari, Oscar Piastri and McLaren took revenge at the Azerbaijan GP.

With a great call from the McLaren pit wall and an extraordinary defence from the Australian driver, the Papaya team leaves Baku as the new Constructors’ World Championship leader ahead of Red Bull.

How the Azerbaijan Grand Prix was won and lost

The Australian driver claimed his second Formula 1 win after a masterful on-track defence against Charles Leclerc and thanks to a good strategic move by McLaren. This time, the Woking-based team beat Ferrari, who didn’t know how to optimally read Charles Leclerc’s tyre degradation before his pit stop on lap 17.

However, Piastri and Leclerc were not alone in the fight for victory. Sergio Pérez overtook Carlos Sainz at the start and was soon behind both drivers as he also pursued his chances of winning for the third time in Baku.

Leclerc opened up a comfortable margin of +3s over Piastri in the first 10 laps of the race. For his part, Perez remained just over +2s behind Piastri and attempted an undercut move with his early pit stop on lap 14.

The undercut attempt was very good. The problem is that Perez came out behind Lando Norris and McLaren used the British driver to slow the Mexican and thus make the undercut on Oscar Piastri finally fail two laps later.

Directly or indirectly, protecting himself from Checo’s undercut also meant undercutting Charles Leclerc, who had a +5.8s advantage over Oscar Piastri when the Australian stopped. A very big advantage, but at a circuit like Baku it can be drastically reduced – as it happened in this case.

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Leclerc stopped one lap later to protect himself from Piastri’s undercut move. But due to the large performance difference between the new hard tyre and the used medium tyre, which had already entered an obvious ‘cliff’ in Leclerc’s case, the time gap was reduced to less than two seconds.

And had it not been for Alex Albon’s block, Piastri might even have completed the undercut successfully. A smart move by McLaren that served as much to defend as to attack.

And despite starting behind Charles Leclerc, Oscar found incredible pace in his opening laps on the hard tyre, unlike Leclerc, which allowed him to overtake the Ferrari driver at the start of lap 20.

Sergio Perez, who had been somewhat on the sidelines during these laps, increased his pace again after the fight between Leclerc and Piastri and got inside the Ferrari driver’s DRS zone. This race situation lasted until lap 26 with Leclerc and Piastri fighting and Perez closely following this beautiful battle trying to fish in troubled waters.

But an unexpected guest was added to all this. Carlos Sainz who had been the last man to stop from the top four and seemed to be totally out of the fight for the podium at +9.5s behind Perez, took advantage of the fight in the top three to increase the pace in clean air and cut some time lap after lap to the leaders.

So much so that on lap 40, the Spanish driver was already just three seconds behind Sergio Perez. The Mexican had lost some time with Leclerc falling to +2s while the Ferrari driver and Oscar Piastri were still in their personal fight for the victory.

However, with the threat of losing the podium to Sainz, Perez pressed again and entered Leclerc’s DRS zone while Sainz reduced his gap to the Red Bull driver to less than two seconds. Four drivers within four seconds of each other with seven laps to go.

On lap 47, Charles Leclerc’s tyres finally said goodbye after more than 26 laps stuck to the back of Oscar Piastri’s car.

With this, Perez got even closer to the Ferrari driver and Sainz in turn to Perez entering the DRS zone. The Spanish driver’s second stint was simply spectacular.

With one lap to go to the chequered flag, Carlos Sainz overtook Sergio Perez with a great manoeuvre at Turn 1 and was also set to chase Charles Leclerc for P2. However, the Spaniard and the Mexican touched at the exit of Turn 2, causing the final Virtual Safety Car and handing the final podium spot to George Russell.

Charles Leclerc kept P2 after more than half of the race fighting for the victory against Oscar Piastri, who took his personal revenge against the Monegasque driver after McLaren’s strategic mistake in Monza.

A strong and solid defence that served to vindicate him and reopen the ‘papaya rules’ debate that finally seemed to have been settled.

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