Max Verstappen takes control of F1 title race at Azerbaijan GP as BOTH Ferraris fail to finish and Mercedes capitalise

MAX VERSTAPPEN took the chequered flag in Baku as Ferrari endured another nightmare weekend and Lewis Hamilton was left grabbing his back in pain.

After throwing away the win in Monaco last time out Ferrari saw Red Bull secure a one-two finish, with Sergio Perez coming home in P2.

And after struggling all weekend with severe bouncing problems, Ferrari’s reliability issues helped Mercedes capitalise for P3 and P4.

George Russell kept up his record of finishing fifth or higher in every single race of the season to take the final place on the podium.

The Brit driver came home one position in front of teammate Hamilton, who struggled with back pain throughout the race due to persistent bouncing.

Hamilton was filmed clambering out his car very gingerly when he came to a stop, and walked back to the Merc garage with a hand on his back.

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The seven-time world champ admitted this weekend he was in physical pain behind the wheel due to the porpoising, and he was picked up on the team radio during the race saying: “My back is killing me.”

Team principal Toto Wolff apologised to Hamilton after the race for the physical pain he was in at the finish.

The Merc boss said: “We all know that this a bit of a **** box to drive at the moment. And sorry for the back also. We will sort ourselves out, well driven.”

Hamilton told Sky Sports after the race: “The only thing was biting down my teeth with pain and just adrenaline.

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“I cannot express the pain you experience, especially on the straight. In the end you are just praying for it to end.

“We are in such a good position still in 3rd and 4th. It is a great result and the team did well with the strategy

“Once we fix this bouncing we will be right in the race because we are losing a second just with bouncing.”

His teammate Russell agreed, with the 24-year-old saying: “It wasn’t nice. I was pretty pleased to see the race come to a close.

“Every single corner of every single lap, it was pretty brutal. I will sleep well tonight. Pleased to be on the podium.”

Meanwhile it was a power unit failure that did it for Leclerc on the streets of Baku after he gave up the lead to Perez at the start of the race.

But it was his teammate Sainz who was first to go on lap nine, before Leclerc followed suit 11 laps later.

From there Verstappen and Perez cruised to a one-two finish after the Dutchman passed his teammate, and Russell and Hamilton followed suit.

Speaking after securing victory, Verstappen said: “You can never make up for what we lost last year, but today we had incredible pace in the car and we could look after the tyres and chip away at it.

“We were a tiny bit lucky because of the retirement but nevertheless our car was really quick today, so I could have closed that gap, then you have a race on your hands.

“Overall, really happy with how the balance of the car was today.

Behind the Red Bull’s and Mercedes’ Pierre Gasly took P5 for AlphaTauri with an impressive drive, ahead of Sebastian Vettel (Aston Martin) and Fernando Alonso (Alpine).

McLaren duo Daniel Ricciardio and Lando Norris followed in P8 and P9 respectively, while Esteban Ocon (Alpine) rounded off the points positions.

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Valteri Bottas (Alfa Romeo), Alex Albon (Williams), Yuki Tsunoda (AlphaTauri), Mich Schumacher (Haas) and Nicholas Latifi (Williams) all went pointless.

Meanwhile Lance Stroll (Aston Martin), Kevin Magnussen (Haas) and Guanyu Zhou (Alfa Romeo) all followed the two Ferrari’s in retiring from the race.

Source: Motorsport - thesun.co.uk