2025 F1 Azerbaijan

Hotrod

Hotrod

2022 RFFL Champion
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What's not to love about cool cars and castles?

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I noticed this topic and realized I knew nothing about Azerbaijan, other than it was once in the USSR. My impression was it was another one of the central Asian 'Stans', a dry, scrubby, mountainous, relatively unsophisticated, relatively poor Third World country. I wondered how such a country was hosting an F1 race.

So I spent an enjoyable 20 minutes over my breakfast reading up on it and having my ignorance updated. Prosperous fossil fuel economy, farther west geographically than I expected, relatively Western in policy compared to some countries around it, relatively moderate by our standards compared to other Islamic nations. I'm still not likely to watch this race but I'm better for having opened the topic.

Thanks, @Hotrod .
 
donthaveanickname said:
The Alpines simultaneously wreck in the same corner. Colapinto ruined his career with this move. If he'd remained Williams test driver he'd be the hottest prospect in silly season.
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He’s fully become Sargeant 2.0

It seems more notable when he doesn’t crash heavily on a race weekend now than when he does.
 
Just a crazy Quali. Always makes for an interesting
Sunday start. Top 3 in points going into Sunday are :
Piastri - 324
Norris - 293
Verstappen - 230
 
This is the second pole in a row for Max. Red Bull has definitely found something and made their car much better, at least at the last two venues.
 
After Monza I didn't think McLaren could fall apart and make Max a factor in this championship again. Now I'm not so sure anymore.

This is a fantastic result for Sainz and Williams. Sainz badly needed this, his season has been terrible so far.

Antonelli and Liam had great runs as well. Ferrari took a brutal beating.

When it comes to the race itself, once again **** these rock tires.
 
McLaren's current strategy appears to be one of 3 things:
1- Playing a game of Rope A Dope
2- Sandbagging
3- Imploding
Something has changed with in this team and
I am just not sure what it is.
 
This championship battle is equal parts sad and hilarious. Two very mid drivers found themselves in one of the greatest cars of all time, and now that they’re to decide the title between themselves they take turns trying to outchoke one another. Piastri opened the door wide open this weekend, and Norris only got 6 points out of it.
 
FLRacingFan said:
This championship battle is equal parts sad and hilarious. Two very mid drivers found themselves in one of the greatest cars of all time, and now that they’re to decide the title between themselves they take turns trying to outchoke one another. Piastri opened the door wide open this weekend, and Norris only got 6 points out of it.
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Define mid in this circumstance.

I'd say both right now are B-tier drivers, but honestly I like the craziness between the both of them. Its keeping the championship fun and honest without a clear number one.

Its different and IMHO its been enjoyable.
 
Piastri simply threw it away. He was lucky that Lando had a bad race and only took 6 points off him. The real danger is they are letting Max begin to claw his way back into the championship fight. Certainly, it's highly unlikely Max can win it, but the possibility is there. McLaren simply got outrun at Monza, but today was on not executing. They were never a factor nearly all weekend. As long as Max keeps getting 1st and 2nds, he's not out of it.
 
Kiante said:
Define mid in this circumstance.

I'd say both right now are B-tier drivers, but honestly I like the craziness between the both of them. Its keeping the championship fun and honest without a clear number one.

Its different and IMHO its been enjoyable.
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Most of the F1 grid is actually reasonably competent right now, meaning I wouldn’t say there are any real wankers out there besides maybe Colapinto. But I don’t think there’s anything that makes Piastri or Norris that discernible talent-wise from any random career midfield driver like an Albon or a Hulkenberg. And they commit too many self-inflicted, unforced errors for me to regard them as top drivers.

Verstappen/Russell/Leclerc are my clear top 3, for reference.
 
Piastri is pretty good. He rarely makes mistakes. Better than Norris, IMO. This is only his third season and he might win the championship. People forget that Verstappen used to make a lot of mistakes when he was younger.
 
Marcingak said:
Piastri is pretty good. He rarely makes mistakes. Better than Norris, IMO. This is only his third season and he might win the championship. People forget that Verstappen used to make a lot of mistakes when he was younger.
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I think Piastri is better than Norris and will ultimately win the championship, but it’s hard to overlook the fact that he hasn’t really had to do much battling thus far in his career.

The McLaren was arguably the worst car on the grid the first half of his rookie year and he didn’t get the opportunity to do a whole lot. By the middle of his sophomore season it was apparent it was now the best car on the grid and it was mostly Norris taking the fight to Verstappen through the end of the year. Now Piastri is quicker and more consistent than Lando in his third year, when the McLaren is head and shoulders above the rest of the field, so he doesn’t really have to fight anybody. He’s only even had to battle Norris maybe twice this whole year. He doesn’t really face any pressure, and he just put up objectively the worst weekend performance a championship leader in any major Motorsport has ever had.

It’s just difficult for me to rate him too highly when he doesn’t have much frame of reference. That said, McLaren were 100% in the right to dump Ricciardo and go through all that drama with Alpine for him.
 
It would be fun to watch Max run the table and see how the McLarens handle the pressure.

But one of their drivers should still be able to outpoint Max if they are consistent with the 2nd and 3rd place finishes.
 
Charlie Spencer said:
I noticed this topic and realized I knew nothing about Azerbaijan, other than it was once in the USSR. My impression was it was another one of the central Asian 'Stans', a dry, scrubby, mountainous, relatively unsophisticated, relatively poor Third World country. I wondered how such a country was hosting an F1 race.

So I spent an enjoyable 20 minutes over my breakfast reading up on it and having my ignorance updated. Prosperous fossil fuel economy, farther west geographically than I expected, relatively Western in policy compared to some countries around it, relatively moderate by our standards compared to other Islamic nations. I'm still not likely to watch this race but I'm better for having opened the topic.

Thanks, @Hotrod .
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Politically it's exactly the same as Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. Same guy has been running the show since 2003 and his dad did before that.

They have quite a bit of oil which has allowed them to host this race and also invest heavily into their military. Azerbaijan has now become much most powerful than their western neighbor Armenia which the government refers to as West-Azerbaijan.

There was an (unrecognized) Armenian enclave inside Azerbaijan that they invaded twice in 2020 and 2023 respectively and blockaded in the time between. In 2023 the entire Armenian population in Azerbaijan was displaced, and no one gave a crap.
They really shouldn't race there.
 
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