F1’s wildest Azerbaijan moments from 10 years of racing in Baku

This year marks 10 years since Formula 1 first raced around the streets of Azerbaijan’s Baku City Circuit. It’s a venue which has played host to some wild and unpredictable moments, so ahead of this weekend’s Grand Prix, we’ve picked out 10 of the most memorable…

2017 – ‘He brake tested me!’

Formula 1’s debut race in Azerbaijan in 2016 was a relatively tame affair, with the drivers adopting a slightly cautious approach after some dramatic moments in the supporting GP2 Series races. But it all kicked off in 2017.

After an innocuous Safety Car period, to clear debris following earlier incidents, Sebastian Vettel tapped the back of title rival Lewis Hamilton’s Mercedes as they were preparing for a restart. Vettel, thought Hamilton had brake tested him, and pulled alongside and made contact with the Mercedes as he made clear his frustration.

The stewards took a dim view and issued Vettel with a stop-and-go penalty, thwarting his chances of taking victory, with Hamilton going on to need an unscheduled stop due to a loose headrest.

Vettel was defiant in the initial aftermath but amid the pair’s increasingly warm relationship later apologised for his misdemeanour.

2017 – Ricciardo’s full send

Daniel Ricciardo’s Azerbaijan adventure in 2017 started unpromisingly as he crashed in Qualifying, consigning him to 10th on the grid. And then it got worse, as debris in his brakes in the opening laps prompted an unscheduled pit stop.

But after that the Aussie avoided trouble which befell others and profited handsomely, while also pulling off his own heroics. None more so than at the race restart, where Ricciardo pulled to the inside of Felipe Massa’s Williams and Nico Hulkenberg’s Renault, before out-braking Massa’s team mate Lance Stroll into Turn 1 in sublime style.

Having risked dropping to sixth, Ricciardo was up to third, and it proved a critical move, as Vettel’s penalty and Hamilton’s headrest setback eventually elevated Ricciardo into a lead that he held on to through to the finish.

2018 – Red Bull’s collision

Red Bull had started 2018 chasing the front-running Mercedes and Ferrari teams, though a strategic masterstroke helped Daniel Ricciardo bag a win in China.

Ricciardo and team mate Max Verstappen were split by less than a tenth of a second in Qualifying in Baku, and spent swathes of the race squabbling over the same patches of tarmac in their contest for fourth place.

The pair swapped position several times, and also came close to peril more than once, having brushed wheels exiting Turn 1, while Verstappen grabbed a tight inside line at Turn 2 to stay ahead.

Ricciardo got ahead, but Verstappen jumped him through the pit phase, meaning he had to do it again. Then the inevitable happened. Ricciardo got a run, moved to the inside, but Verstappen switched to defend the line, and Ricciardo rear-ended the sister car. The contact eliminated both from the race.

2018 – ‘Ericsson hit us!’

Romain Grosjean had a wretched time during the opening part of the 2018 season and the Azerbaijan Grand Prix didn’t help matters.

He had cannily worked his way forwards into sixth position during the race but when weaving behind the Safety Car – caused by the Red Bull drivers colliding – his VF-18 suddenly pitched right and cannoned into the wall around the Old City section of the track.

Grosjean’s race engineer famously pondered whether Sauber driver Marcus Ericsson had been involved, but a devastated Grosjean explained what actually happened.

“I was warming up my tyres and bumped into a switch that I’d moved by two positions,” he said. “When I touched the brakes, the brake balance was locked rearward – it just locked the rear wheels.”

2018 – Bottas’ late heartbreak

That same 2018 race had one last sting in the tail. Valtteri Bottas was a quiet player during the opening stint of the race, but his strategy turned out to be on point, and he slipped into the lead of the race in the closing stages.

The Finn kept his nose clean when Sebastian Vettel attempted an overly ambitious move into the first corner, and he swiftly built a buffer, putting his Mercedes at arm’s length before the full-throttle blast of the final sector.

The finish was almost in sight. But as Bottas began Lap 49 of 51 the right-rear tyre on his Mercedes W09 let go, and his prospects of victory were as shredded as the Pirelli rubber that rapidly detached from his car. He was forced to park up – and that would be the closest he got to top spot in what was a winless and challenging year for him.

2019 – ‘I am stupid’

Ferrari had snatched defeat from the jaws of victory on several occasions in 2019, and around the streets of Baku its package was performing well, particularly in the hands of sophomore Charles Leclerc.

The youngster was still chasing his maiden victory, having been denied by a failed cylinder earlier the same month in Bahrain, and was rapid throughout practice. He then went fastest in Q1, but while striving to improve his time in Q2 he was too hot into the tricky narrow left-hander at Turn 8 and collided with the wall.

It prompted him to deliver a famous line on the radio, exasperatedly telling his engineer: “I am stupid… I am stupid.”

Leclerc went on to make amends, with pole positions in Azerbaijan in 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024, but he has yet to climb onto the top step of the podium on race day.

2021 – Verstappen’s high-speed exit

For Valtteri Bottas in 2018, read Max Verstappen in 2021. The Red Bull driver had worked his way up to the front of the pack, leading a Red Bull 1-2, and looked poised to collect the winner’s trophy.

But as he prepared to complete the 46th of 51 laps he suffered a tyre failure at high-speed, pitching his RB16B into a huge impact with the wall along the pit straight, from which the Dutchman was fortunately able to walk away uninjured.

An irate Verstappen kicked the knackered tyre as he trudged away from the scene of the accident. It marked the second sudden tyre failure of the race, after Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll had suffered a similarly violent impact a few hundred metres further up the track just after mid-distance.

2021 – Hamilton’s costly lock-up

The exit of Max Verstappen from the race was a gift for title rival Lewis Hamilton. Race Control brought out the red flags, owing to the debris on track, and it left time for just a two-lap dash to the flag.

Hamilton lined up second to Sergio Perez at the standing restart, and a healthy haul of points was in the offing for the Mercedes man.

He got off the line well and seized the inside approach for the 90-degree left hander at Turn 1, but as he did so he locked up his front-left tyre and sailed straight on, forced to take to the run-off before re-joining at the very rear of the field.

It transpired that Hamilton was in the wrong brake bias setting at the restart, explaining: “I clicked a switch and it basically switches the brakes off, and I just went straight.”

2024 – Perez and Sainz clash

Sergio Perez has history with Baku, with underdog podiums for Force India in 2016 and 2018 followed by victories for Red Bull in 2021 and 2023 – the latter completing a clean sweep of the weekend in the wake of his Sprint Race win too.

There were also more dramatic moments, including a clash against Force India team mate Esteban Ocon in 2017, and a disastrous conclusion to his race in 2024. Perez had been enduring a slump in form but qualified an encouraging fourth in Baku – a rare occasion in which he bested Verstappen – and held third in the closing stages.

Perez challenged Charles Leclerc for second at the start of the penultimate lap, but the scrap opened the pathway for Leclerc’s Ferrari team mate Carlos Sainz to get involved, and he snuck through.

Perez got a cleaner exit from Turn 2, but as the pair went wheel-to-wheel along the straight they bizarrely tangled and cannoned into the wall – putting both out on the spot.

2025 – Six red flags in Qualifying

Stringing together a perfect lap around Baku is a challenge for drivers on account of the unique characteristics of the circuit – the lengthy straights make it difficult to ensure brakes and tyres are in the correct operating window, and the proximity of the walls means there is very little margin for error.

The three-stage Qualifying session has regularly been interrupted by drivers miscuing, and that reached a crescendo in 2025, when there were a whopping six red flags.

Alex Albon, Nico Hulkenberg and Franco Colapinto brought them out in Q1, Oliver Bearman caused one in Q2, while Charles Leclerc and Oscar Piastri clattered the walls in Q3.

It marked an end to Leclerc’s streak of poles in Baku, and also kicked off what would become a dreadful event for Piastri, who botched the start of the race and crashed out after just six corners.