2024 Formula 1 Azerbaijan Grand Prix Highlights

It was actually going better than expected to be honest; we managed to find some rhythm and pace today which I’m very happy and pleased about. Unfortunately, in the last few laps I faced some issues, and with the accident at the end I got caught off guard. For me, it was a straight safety car or even red flag as there was some real carnage down the straight. It was instead then a green flag, and I lost positions there and lost the result unfortunately. The whole track was covered in debris, and I ran over a massive piece which I couldn’t see because of a car in front of me. It was a pretty crazy two last laps, but unfortunately not in our favour.

I wasn’t going to finish in the points but there was some misfortune in front of me which allowed me to do so. I missed some pace in the first stint and lost a few positions there and that put me a bit behind in the race as I got some traffic and lost some time. In the second stint, I’m quite happy with the performance. It’s tough when you’re trying to overtake, you really have to push the tires and they get hot, so I was pushing hard to overtake Franco (Colapinto), and eventually Lewis overtook me, so he was using his experience there to do that.

Purely from Ollie’s driving, I thought it was a really good job. Yes, he was overly managing the tire earlier, but the team should’ve done better to inform Ollie during the first stint. The pace really hindered his race but once he realized he was over-managing, he picked it up and had awareness. I think it’s brilliant to bring home P10 and a much-needed point for the team. All in all with Ollie, he had a setback in FP3, and underperformed in Q2, but overall it’s impressive.

On Nico’s side, his race was strong and it may not be a track he gets on well with but today, he was really strong. He had a good feel on the car and on the tires, he was doing a much better job in the first stint. On his second stint on hards, it was amazing, he really managed them, but it’s a shame that with two laps to go he hit the wall on the right-hand side and lost position to Colapinto. When he was recovering from that, the accident happened with the yellow flag coming out. Nico hit something big, I’m not sure what, but when he saw the green light he didn’t react quick enough, so Hamilton and Ollie overtook him. The positives are that we had the race pace, and even at one of Nico’s worst tracks, he was very competitive. I’m sure we can fight for points for the rest of the season.