This weekend’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix will be the 10th running of a Formula 1 race on the streets of Baku, but it feels like the City of Winds has dealt Australian F1 fans far more than a decade’s worth of pleasure and pain.
Baku has been the scene of some of Australia’s biggest highs and deepest lows in grand prix racing in its short tenure on the F1 calendar.
Daniel Ricciardo and Oscar Piastri know this duality well.
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Though Baku is almost 13,000km from Albert Park, Azerbaijan has played a crucial role in the fate of both Aussies in Formula 1.
When Baku’s wheel of fortune spins again this weekend, will it be pleasure or pain for Piastri?
THAT’S GOOD: RICCIARDO’S BAKU STUNNER
Race: 2017 Azerbaijan Grand Prix, round 8 of 20
Qualified: 10th
Finished: 1st (career victory no. 6)
The first race in Azerbaijan had run under the moniker of the European Grand Prix and had been a real dud, with a surprising lack of action for the high-speed street circuit.
One year later at the same track but now known as the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, and the race established itself as a modern classic.
Ricciardo played a defining role in defining expectations.
Formula 1 hadn’t been kind to Ricciardo after his breakout three-win 2014 season. Red Bull Racing was in decline, and Ricciardo won only once over the following two seasons despite his good form.
The 2017 season was shaping up as a battle between Mercedes and Ferrari and between Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel. In the three grands prix preceding Baku, Ricciardo was the only driver from neither of those teams to finish on the podium — though the top step proved elusive.
There was little reason to think Baku would be any different from 10th on the grid after crashing out of qualifying — and even less after debris in his front brake ducts forced him into an early pit stop that left him 17th after just six laps.
The first Azerbaijan Grand Prix was about to take a turn, though, with three safety cars completely changing the complexion of Ricciardo’s race.
The first was to recover the stricken Toro Rosso of Daniil Kvyat on lap 13.
By then Ricciardo had made four passes and capitalised on a pit stop and two retirements to rise back to 10th.
He turned that to ninth at the restart, which lasted only a few seconds before another safety car was called to clear debris.
The second resumption was even more chaotic than the first, with Force India fractious teammates Sergio Pérez and Esteban Ocon crashing into each other and taking out Kimi Räikkönen as collateral damage. Ricciardo rose to sixth and then picked off Nico Hülkenberg for fifth when the race was red flagged.
Suddenly within sight of victory, he unleashed.
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The rolling restart was peak Ricciardo, late on the brakes into the first turn to overtake Williams teammates Lance Stroll and Felipe Massa while defending against Hülkenberg, who was attempting to thread the needle from the outside line.
Four drivers went in side-by-side, but Ricciardo emerged ahead.
Now he was up to third behind title protagonists Hamilton and Vettel. Their cars were in another league, but the grand prix had another twist in hand.
As the race was about to restart from the second safety car on lap 19, Vettel rear-ended Hamilton. Incensed by what he thought was a brake test, he pulled alongside the Mercedes and bumped him wheel to wheel.
Data demonstrated the brake test had been completely imagined, and Vettel was slapped with a 10-second stop-go penalty that took him out of contention.
Hamilton, though, was then forced into an unscheduled pit stop shortly afterwards to repair a broken headrest, which dropped him behind Vettel to conclude a bizarre chapter in their title fight.
Suddenly Ricciardo was in the lead. It was the first time all season he’d been in top spot, and he cruised comfortably to his fifth career victory.
“I have never really had a boring win and today was certainly not that,” he said. “After all the chaos and the red flag, I felt that a podium was in reach, but then once Lewis had to pit and Seb had the penalty, I knew the win was possible.
“Today was going to be a race of no mistakes, capitalising on moments and opportunities, and I felt like we did everything we could this afternoon.
“What a day. It’s crazy, and it’s slowly sinking in.”
(Photo by Mark Thompson/Getty Images)Source: Getty Images
THAT’S BAD: THE BAKU BUST-UP THAT ALTERED RICCIARDO’S CAREER
Race: 2018 Azerbaijan Grand Prix, round 4 of 21
Qualified: 4th
Finished: DNF
The scene couldn’t have been more different one year on.
Despite a bundle of podiums, the Baku victory in 2017 turned out to be the only one of the campaign, thanks in part to a mounting unreliability streak for Red Bull Racing’s Renault power unit.
Max Verstappen was also growing in strength in the second seat. The Dutchman had begun to smooth out the very rough edges that had weighed against his clearly immense speed. Ricciardo was no longer unquestionably the team leader — and it takes barely any time at all in the world of Red Bull for great drivers to become yesterday’s news.
In the background was the fact 2018 was a contract year for Ricciardo — and that just months earlier Verstappen had signed a long term deal that then-boss Christian Horner said would give the Dutchman to “build a team around him” to challenge for the championship.
Questions about Ricciardo’s shrinking place in the team came to a head in Baku.
The Australian had qualified fourth, one place ahead of his teammate, and the pair spent the first part of the race battling for the place.
The Dutchman got ahead early and defended several of the Australian’s advances aggressively, at one point even causing contact once and perhaps twice exiting the first turn. Ricciardo barged through on lap 35 just before their first pit stops, but a slower stop and a so-so out-lap had Verstappen back ahead when he took his own service one lap later.
Ricciardo attempted to fight back immediately, using his now warmer tyres to get a better exit from the critical turn 16 for a better run down the long front straight.
He had the slipstream, and Verstappen chose to defend the left-hand inside line and force his teammate around the outside.
Ricciardo moved to the right, and then Verstappen did the same, blocking his path.
Ricciardo then moved back to the left, and both drivers hit the brakes — and then Verstappen moved to the left too.
At that point the crash was unavoidable.
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Ricciardo rear-ended Verstappen, with both spinning out into the run-off zone and out of the race.
It was clear — should have been clear — to any objective observer that Verstappen had moved under braking, for which he had developed a reputation during the formative years of his career.
Moving under braking is generally frowned upon at the F1 level because of its danger — once both drivers are fully committed on the brakes, it’s extremely difficult to change course.
Despite the obvious, however, team boss Horner required Ricciardo to make a public apology to the team along with Verstappen later that week.
It didn’t sit well with Ricciardo, who had already been contemplating whether Red Bull Racing was the right place for him — whether the emotional preference inside the team had shifted to explicitly backing Verstappen.
Just over two months later, the Australian announced he was quitting the team to join Renault.
Baku wasn’t the decisive moment, but it was a contributing factor to him changing the trajectory of his career.
Renault overpromised and underdelivered — and in the background was racked by political instability — while McLaren exposed some latent weaknesses in Ricciardo’s style that had been hitherto hidden.
Sacked by McLaren and then thrown a lifesaver that turned into a cinderblock by Red Bull, Ricciardo career petered out without him having fulfilled his title-contending promise.
He won twice more after Azerbaijan: miraculously in Monaco with a busted engine and then in Italy on his singular flittering day for McLaren in 2021.
“Getting to Formula 1 was a dream, let alone being here for over a decade and having the chance to fight for wins,” he said after his final race.
“I don’t want to look back and be, ‘Poor me’. I think it’s been great.
“I’m proud.”
(Photo by Mark Thompson/Getty Images)Source: Getty Images
THAT’S GOOD: PIASTRI’S MASTERFUL DEFENSIVE VICTORY
Race: 2024 Azerbaijan Grand Prix, round 17 of 24
Qualified: 2nd
Finished: 1st (career victory no. 2)
The build-up to the 2024 Azerbaijan Grand Prix was all about McLaren but not about Piastri.
McLaren was surging in the championship standings while Red Bull Racing was fading fast.
Lando Norris, McLaren’s senior driver, was an outside shot at beating Verstappen to victory if he could keep up the moment — but he’d need some help to do it.
Piastri had started his second F1 season inconsistently but had developed a head of steam. He was the highest-scoring driver in the sport through the European season, and though he was well behind Norris in the standings, he was in better form.
So the question was: when would McLaren pull rank and require Piastri to support Norris?
After a memorable battle in Italy in which Piastri put a muscular move on Norris for what was then the lead, McLaren was ready to make the call: from the Baku weekend, Piastri would be asked to support Norris’s challenge where he could.
With impeccably timed irony, Norris was knocked out in Q1 while Piastri qualified on the front row behind Charles Leclerc.
Piastri attempted to pressure Leclerc early but found his tyres chewed, and before long he was watching his mirror for Baku specialist Sergio Pérez.
Red Bull Racing sensed an opportunity and pit the Mexican early. Fortuitously he dropped behind Norris, who held him up just long enough to guarantee Piastri could pit on the following lap without losing the place.
Leclerc covered Piastri on the opening lap and found his deficit slashed by the undercut. Still, McLaren wasn’t confident the move was on, and Piastri was encouraged to treat his tyres gently after what had happened in the opening stint.
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Piastri thought otherwise.
He latched onto Leclerc’s DRS on lap 19 but was too far adrift to sail past down the front straight. Leclerc, seeing the distance, didn’t move to cover the inside line.
The Australian had other ideas and pounced with a magnificent late-braking move to pinch the Monegasque’s pocket and emerge with the lead.
But Leclerc’s Ferrari was the faster car, and he continued to pressure Piastri to cough up the lead.
Lap after lap he attempted to force Piastri into a mistake through the middle sector in the hope of getting a race-winning slipstream down to turn 1. Several times both cars were spotted by the television cameras sliding dramatically out of the critical turn 16, both drivers at the limit of grip.
It was a spectacular dual, but the inexperienced Piastri was defensively perfect. By lap 46 Leclerc tyres were finished, and he began to slip backwards.
Piastri broke free and built a buffer he turned into his second career victory — and one that still ranks among the very best of his career to date.
“That was the most stressful afternoon of my life,” he said afterwards in his typically unflappable fashion.
“I knew that getting into the lead was going to be, let’s say, 40 per cent of the job but that hanging on to it was going to be 60 per cent,” he said.
“Just trying to keep Charles behind was incredibly stressful. I couldn’t make a single mistake.
“I think for me that has to be one of the best races I’ve done.”
(Photo by Dan Mullan/Getty Images)Source: Getty Images
THAT’S BAD: BAKU KICKS OFF PIASTRI’S TITLE DECLINE
Race: 2025 Azerbaijan Grand Prix, round 17 of 24
Qualified: 9th
Finished: DNF
When Piastri returned to Baku one year later, he did so with his authority and reputation greatly enhanced as the leader of the world championship.
He’d won seven more times since his Azerbaijan victory and held a 31-point lead over teammate Norris, and there was no real sign that the Englishman had the momentum to mount a recovery.
Baku would change all that.
Qualifying was chaotic in blustery and drizzly conditions. The normally 60-minute session lasted a marathon two hours and featured a record-breaking six red flags as driver after driver found the barriers.
One of them was Piastri.
He’d made it to Q3 but carried too much speed into turn 3 and found the barriers, condemning him to ninth on the grid. Miraculously Norris fumbled his was only to seventh, giving the appearance of damage limited.
Things got worse in the race.
Piastri jumped the start and then stalled on the grid as he attempted to correct his mistake, dropping him to last by the first turn.
In a clumsy attempt to make up ground, he locked up into turn 5 and slid helplessly into the barriers, ending his race in an instant.
It was — and still is — the messiest weekend of his Formula 1 career.
“Unfortunately there’s been far too many mistakes from start to finish,” he said at the time. “Every single session has been messy, so just trying to clean that up is the important thing for the future.
“I think it’s rare that I have so many executional errors, so I’m very much focused on putting that behind me.
“You’re never going to feel amazing after a weekend like this, but ultimately I felt like the pace has still been good this weekend,” he said.
Intriguingly, though, it wasn’t until later that he admitted there’d been something rolling around in the back of his head that weekend.
The race before that was Monza, which I didn’t feel was a particularly great weekend from my own performance, and there was obviously what happened with the pit stops,” Piastri told Beyond the Grid.
“I think there were some things in the lead-up, let’s say, that were maybe not the most helpful.”
(Photo by Rudy Carezzevoli/Getty Images)Source: Getty Images
The previous race in Italy was where McLaren controversially ordered Piastri to give up second place for Norris after a pit stop blunder for the Englishman had accidentally inverted their positions.
Whatever the case, Azerbaijan was the first of a damaging six-race streak off the podium for Piastri, having finished outside the top three only twice up until then that season.
By the end of that run he’d been overtaken by Norris for the title lead and had been equalled on points by Verstappen, and by the end of the season he slumped to third in the championship standings behind both.
There was more to his dire run of results in the final third of the season than a loss of momentum.
Some of those season-closing circuits revealed some weaknesses that hadn’t previously been put under the spotlight.
He was also unlucky on multiple occasions — in Singapore, where he was shoved off the podium by Norris; in Brazil, where he was dudded by a contentious penalty; and in Qatar, where a team strategy bungle cost him a victory — and by enough to have had an effect on the points standings.
But not for the first time, the will of Baku has intervened to hand an Australian driver what turned out to be something of a belting just one year after taking them to one of their career highlights.
Which will it be this year?