Leping Baku with Valtteri Bottas | Racer

One of the newer events in the Formula 1 calendar, the Azerbaijan Grand Prix has built itself a reputation as a race that can deliver chaos in the previous eight editions. A driver who has seen both parties is Valtteri Bottas, and the Racing winner of 2019 is your guide for a round of Baku.

“I have good and bad memories of BAKU DEAME THE LAP LAP during Leiden in 2018!

“For me, what makes this place so special, is that it is always a truly unpredictable race. It is often very entertaining. Many things happen – yellow flags, safety cars, and it is just difficult to predict what will happen. That is exciting.

“And the course itself, you know, for a street circuit, it is fairly high speed. And it has the longest flat section. So that also means that slip streaming and catching up is good.

“It is absolutely not one of the more difficult songs on the circuit-er are not really good high-speed corners. All high-speed corners, they are downright. But they are usually 90 degrees corners, with a few slow sections such as the castle, so it’s a technical track.

“It is also bumpy. And it is a street circuit, and with some of the wide lines there is a difference in the handle in different places, so it is one of the more technical.

“It is quite unique, I would say. Going down for so long, sometimes it feels like never ending! You see the buildings and so, so it’s pretty cool. The middle sector or the castle section, there feels more like a normal street track, but I would say that the last part is quite special.

“The only annoying here in his turn 1 is that you arrive quite often with cold brakes. So the first bite of the brakes is never completely 100% – that’s why it makes it even harder to find the optimum braking point for turn 1.

“The most important part for me is the last sector. It is normally a bit more exposed to the wind, that last correct angle in turn 16 before it comes to the long straight straight. And the corner for that – turns 15 – has a downhill, quite difficult braking. It is difficult to place the car in a completely straight line for braking. So you can lose a little.

The wild mix of new and old in Baku is matched by the combination of long, fast straight and tight, slow corners. Rudy Carezzevoli/Getty images

“In the race it is normally really dominated by the retreat. We have had a number of races with bad grainy problems and it is normally quite difficult to get the back to the front balance in terms of the wear profile. So as a driver you also have to change a little.

“You can definitely try to use the front tires a little more and play with the setup, but that will be the same. If it is not hot, you tend to struggle with front tires on the cooler side on the surface, especially under brakes. So with the setup, you want to try to find that correct balance, but that is the tendency to be the clear direction.

“It is always a compromise with the downforce level here, but it really depends on how much confidence you want to feel in the corners – with more downforce – and how competitive you want to be in the race, against other cars, with less downforce. So it’s not easy on that feeling.

“I have always enjoyed it. Like I said, I have had good memories and terrible memories, but it is always exciting racing. And normally I feel that we have done it pretty well here.”

At a glance
Race -distance: 51 rounds/190.9 miles
2024 Polar time: 1M41.365S (Charles Leclerc, Ferrari)
2024 Winner: Oscar Piastri, McLaren-Mercedes
Pirelli -Tandstenstoeing: Pirelli brings his softest trio of 2025 connections for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, a step softer than last year. In fact, the C6 is back as the soft one, which is already used in Imola, Monaco and Montreal. The C5 will be the medium and the C4 the hard.

On a street circuit with low levels of grip and wear, it would inevitably have led to a one-stop strategy. In any case, in this way, given that this year’s reach this year suffers much less from grit, it opens the possibility of a two -stop strategy. Moreover, it is clear that this year, the most recently in Monza, the teams and drivers have become skilled in managing the tires well, so that it is unlikely that the race will see very different strategies. Although it is a street track, Baku has a number of very long straight pieces where the cars affect very high top speeds that place considerably vertical loads on the tires.

Qatar Airways Azerbaijan Grand Prix Weekend schedule (always Times et):

Friday, September 19

4:25 AM – 5:30 AM – First Exercise, ESPNU

7:55 am – 9:00 am – Second training, ESPNU

Saturday, September 20

4:25 am – 5:30 am – Third Practice, ESPN2

7:55 am – 9:00 am – qualifying, ESPN2

Sunday, September 21

8:55 am – 11:00 am – Azerbaijan Grand Prix (51 laps or 120 minutes), ESPN