Sergio Perez confidently wins sprint as Russell can't capitalize on restart
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Sergio Perez won the sprint race in Baku this afternoon, despite Charles Leclerc keeping the lead after the start. The Red Bull car and its DRS on the main straight was too strong for Leclerc and the Ferrari to keep behind. The World Champion Max Verstappen rounded out the podium despite a battle with George Russell early in the Grand Prix.
Opening laps to forget for the Red Bull family
In a rare case for Baku, the first corner was relatively clean between the 19 starters, besides a squeeze between Max Verstappen and George Russell. Their battle lasted for a few corners before the Brit eventually jumped the world champion after some slight contact at turn three. Meanwhile, at the front, it was Charles Leclerc who powered away well from the get-go and held his lead over Sergio Perez.
Later in the first lap, Yuki Tsunoda brought out the virtual safety, as he lost his right rear tyre after contact with the wall around lap 15, limping back to the pits on his own accord. However, the Japanese driver would then be sent out with his rear right tyre still askew and continued out on lap three before the VSC was upgraded to a full safety car.
Mercedes Misfire of Safety Car restart.
Verstappen managed to overtake the Russell on the restart, while the other Mercedes of Lewis Hamilton also lost a spot to Carlos Sainz at turn one. Despite Leclerc reporting engine issues during the safety car period, he was able to get the jump right and stay ahead of Perez throughout the restart lap. Although with the DRS being enabled just one lap after the restart in Sprints, Perez was right on the tail of the Ferrari on the 2.2km straight, whereby the end, the Mexican would take the lead and fastest lap on lap 8.
Soft tyre runners struggle
Perez was able to stay ahead of Leclerc, leaving enough space behind the Ferarri to where the DRS was not effective enough on the main straight. Leclerc even dropped back in the DRS range of Verstappen, who was working on closing him down.
Lando Norris made the gamble of soft tyres to start the race, and while it was effective for the first bit of racing, it eventually caused him to start to drop through the field, as he was overtaken by his teammate and the Haas of Kevin Magnussen and Nico Hulkenberg within a few corners. Before being brought into the pits and dropped to last place.
Tyre issues for some medium runners
As we entered the final laps, the top three had separated a little. However, there were moments where Leclerc was able to start to close down the Red Bull ahead of him, but the Mexican was able to react and gap the Ferrari back out of DRS range.
Hulkenberg would face issues in the final stretch, and he slowly dropped back from his teammate ahead of him at a significant rate. The German was the first of the medium runners to see tyre issues, but a few others on the grid appeared to struggle with similar graining. This included Leclerc, who dropped to three seconds behind Perez and into the sights of the Dutchman behind him.