5 things that stood out during the Azerbaijan GP!

Baku was the third race in a row where the F1 has been thoroughly entertaining to watch after a dull season opener in Australia. As this year's action in Baku has come to an end, we look at the five things that stood out to us during the Azerbaijan Grand Prix!

Today's Driver of the Day, Charles Leclerc has really shown what he's made of this weekend. The Ferrari Academy product has shown flashes up until this weekend, but this was his first really impressive all-around performance.

Leclerc finished P6 in a Sauber. Let that sink in. That means that he's picked up more points today than Sauber has during the whole of last season. The Monegasque rookie showed fine pace in qualifying as he finished fourteenth, leaving his teammate Marcus Ericsson in his dust.

As the race started, Leclerc showed great pace early on and found himself in the top ten. The rookie kept climbing as people around him kept crashing, and Leclerc put the cherry on top at the end by brilliantly overtaking two-time champion Fernando Alonso.

Keep an eye on this guy everyone, he's the real deal.

It's getting painfully obvious that Vandoorne is not cut from the same cloth as Fernando Alonso. Sure, Alonso is one of the best drivers period, but Vandoorne had no excuse today.

Alonso was forced to make an extra pitstop early-on as he had a double-puncture and drove the rest of the race with a damaged floor, and stíll, the Spaniard scored more points than his Belgian counterpart. Alonso has out-qualified Vandoorne every single time this year so far too. The difference in quality is sticking out like a sore thumb, and Vandoorne is going to have to start worrying about getting axed from the team.

Yes, of course, the crash of the Red Bulls was something that stood out massively. What really stood out though, is that there were no instructions given from the pit wall.

When both Bulls came in, they switched to ultra-softs in a clear attempt to close the 25-second gap between them and the podium. They should've been helping each other to close the gap instead of battling each other. There doesn't need to be a Ferrari-esque order that one driver has the priority over the other, but the team could've instructed that they couldn't overtake each other until they closed the gap. Instead, they let the two most aggressive drivers on the track battle it out, and wouldn't you know it, they collided and crashed.

Nico Hulkenberg is the driver with most races in F1-history without a podium finish. That's not a record you want to have to your name, but today we saw why the German perhaps has the record to his name.

Not for the first time, and certainly not in Baku, Hulkenberg has thrown away the chance at a podium finish because of a mistake he made himself. The Hulk has been consistently good for Renault, but every time he's in the position to get a podium, something happens. This time, the German threw his car into the wall. I used to feel bad for Hulkenberg and his record, but that feeling is starting to fade.

Not much to say about this, really. Valtteri Bottas looked like a lock to win the race at the end there, but the Finn hit a piece of debris and crashed out of the Grand Prix. How did he not see that? It was huge! Was it the halo or something?

Anyways, Bottas had a great race up until that point, taking advantage of the safety car and doing very well during the restart, but he couldn't materialize his fantastic performance in terms of points. The championship seems to be fading away already for him.