Azerbaijan Grand Prix driver ratings

44 Lewis Hamilton
Mercedes F1 W08

Start: 1st
Finish: 5th
Strategy: 2 stops (super-soft/soft/super-soft)

Rating: 9

Mercedes turned its Friday suspension set-up problems around and Hamilton produced a mega qualifying performance - one Niki Lauda reckoned no one else was capable of.

Hamilton controlled the race, even after Vettel drove into him twice, but a loose headrest ultimately cost him victory. The only fault is a slow in-lap that cost him a place to Vettel in the final reckoning.

77 Valtteri Bottas
Mercedes F1 W08

Start: 2nd
Finish: 2nd
Strategy: 3 stops (super-soft/soft/super-soft/super-soft)

Rating: 8

Bottas was much nearer to Hamilton's pace than it looked in qualifying and pole would have been a closer run thing without a couple of small mistakes at Turns 7 and 16.

He was hesitant on the brakes again in his first-lap collision with Raikkonen, but his recovery thereafter was superb. Bottas never gave up and impressively hung it out in successful late chase of Stroll.

3 Daniel Ricciardo
Red Bull-Renault RB13

Start: 10th
Finish: 1st
Strategy: 3 stops (super-soft/soft/super-soft/super-soft)

Rating: 8

Ricciardo struggled to hang on to the RB13 in low-downforce trim in the same way as team-mate Verstappen and crunching the wall in Q3 would ordinarily have ruined his race.

But this was no ordinary race. He rode his luck of course, but raced well through the lower order and pulled off a stunning double pass of Massa and Stroll that ultimately bagged him victory.

33 Max Verstappen
Red Bull-Renault RB13

Start: 5th
Finish: Retired
Strategy: (super-soft/retired)

Rating: 8

Verstappen has been in great form recently and drove well again in Baku - fastest on Friday and set to outqualify the Ferraris but for one small mistake and some engine and gearbox glitches.

He fell behind Perez but was applying pressure when the car let him down again in the race, which Red Bull is convinced he would have won but for that engine failure.

5 Sebastian Vettel
Ferrari SF70H

Start: 4th
Finish: 4th
Strategy: 2 stops (super-soft/soft/super-soft)

Rating: 4

Ferrari's usual excellence with the Pirelli tyres was missing and Vettel struggled to fourth in qualifying.

He said afterwards that he doesn't like excuses and there was no excusing what he did in the race. OK, it's understandable he might have misconstrued the Mercedes' body language, but Vettel's petulant over-reaction to Hamilton's restart tactics damaged his integrity and cost him victory, completely tainting an otherwise strong drive.

7 Kimi Raikkonen
Ferrari SF70H

Start: 3rd
Finish: Retired
Strategy: 2 stops (super-soft/soft/super-soft/retired)

Rating: 7

After outqualifying Vettel for the second time in three races, Raikkonen's grand prix was a hard-luck story in a race of many.

A first-lap collision with Bottas was just one of those things (though Raikkonen blamed his countryman), but Raikkonen was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time when the Force Indias came together, which cost him a big points haul.

11 Sergio Perez
Force India-Mercedes VJM10

Start: 6th
Finish: Retired
Strategy: (super-soft/soft/super-soft/retired)

Rating: 7

Perez squeaked ahead of Ocon in qualifying, though the team felt both drivers underperformed.

A strong first lap put Perez in the driving seat behind Hamilton and Vettel, but he lost ground to Massa at the second restart then collided with Ocon at the exit of Turn 2, which spoiled a golden chance for Force India to finish on the podium.

31 Esteban Ocon
Force India-Mercedes VJM10

Start: 7th
Finish: 6th
Strategy: 3 stops (super-soft/soft/super-soft/super-soft)

Rating: 7

Ocon's rate of progress is impressive and a slightly tidier run through Turn 3 would have qualified him ahead of Perez on his first visit to Baku.

Squeezing Perez on the exit of Turn 2 looked like a minor misjudgement that had major consequences in the race, but Ocon blamed Perez for starting it. He recovered strongly to sixth in the aftermath.

18 Lance Stroll
Williams-Mercedes FW40

Start: 8th
Finish: 3rd
Strategy: 2 stops (super-soft/soft/super-soft)

Rating: 9

Stroll looks a driver transformed. Points in Canada boosted his confidence and a private test in his 2014 Williams between races gave him a better set-up direction for Baku.

The rookie's form was strong through free practice, he narrowly outqualified Massa for the first time, and drove with composure to bag a maiden podium finish. Easily his best race yet.

19 Felipe Massa
Williams-Mercedes FW40

Start: 9th
Finish: Retired
Strategy: (super-soft/soft/super-soft/retired)

Rating: 8

Massa looked good in practice here, but felt the grip went away in qualifying without extra preparation laps to build tyre temperature and he came perilously close to disaster several times.

He drove very well in the race, running ahead of Stroll until a rear damper failure locked his suspension solid and robbed him of a certain podium finish.

2 Stoffel Vandoorne
McLaren-Honda MCL32

Start: 18th
Finish: 12th
Strategy: 3 stops (soft/super-soft/super-soft/super-soft)

Rating: 6

Vandoorne qualified well behind Alonso again, which was disappointing considering it was much closer after the first runs in Q1.

He mixed it with his team-mate initially in the race, but had to pit early and got shuffled back through the restarts. Vandoorne should have finished 10th really, but a flatspot forced an extra stop and set up a fruitless late chase of the Saubers.

14 Fernando Alonso
McLaren-Honda MCL32

Start: 19th
Finish: 9th
Strategy: 2 stops (super-soft/soft/super-soft)

Rating: 8

Alonso was a sniff away from Q2 here, even without the benefit of Honda's new 'spec 3' engine that he sampled in practice, but a multitude of grid penalties made it a pointless exercise in any case.

He raced valiantly with faster cars and lucked his way up to fifth at one point, but ultimately the car regressed to its natural level.

26 Daniil Kvyat
Toro Rosso-Renault STR12

Start: 11th
Finish: Retired
Strategy: (super-soft/retired)

Rating: 8

Kvyat is very strong on this circuit and lapped inside the top 10 throughout free practice, but the Renault-powered Toro Rosso was always going to struggle to make Q3 without a big aerodynamic tow on Baku's long straights.

He ran wide at Turn 1 after the start and almost collided with Sainz, but was racing Magnussen (who finished seventh) before the car broke down.

55 Carlos Sainz Jr
Toro Rosso-Renault STR12

Start: 15th
Finish: 8th
Strategy: 2 stops (super-soft/soft/super-soft)

Rating: 6

Sainz was never really at the races this weekend, struggling for confidence in the car, so was relieved to be told his engineers had discovered a couple of incorrect settings after qualifying.

He recovered from a first-corner spin trying to avoid his team-mate to bag points again in a race of attrition. Sainz should have finished one place further up without that incident.

8 Romain Grosjean
Haas-Ferrari VF-17

Start: 16th
Finish: 13th
Strategy: 3 stops (soft/super-soft/super-soft/super-soft)

Rating: 5

A torrid weekend for Grosjean, who struggled worse than Magnussen with a Sochi-like lack of feeling under braking. He was very honest in admitting he needs to do better at driving around the problem until it is fixed.

Grosjean would have finished 10th in the race without the suspected left front brake disc problem that made the second half of his grand prix a nightmare.

20 Kevin Magnussen
Haas-Ferrari VF-17

Start: 12th
Finish: 7th
Strategy: 2 stops (super-soft/soft/super-soft)

Rating: 9

Magnussen is coping better than Grosjean with persistent Haas brake problems and drove very well on a tough weekend for the team. He qualified as high up as could be expected and kept his nose clean as others faltered in the race.

Though he got up to third, Magnussen was never going to hang on to a podium. Seventh was the best result possible in the circumstances.

27 Nico Hulkenberg
Renault RS17

Start: 13th
Finish: Retired
Strategy: (super-soft/soft/super-soft/retired)

Rating: 6

Hulkenberg coped admirably with a difficult car, which shut down on him before he could flex his muscles in Q2.

He raced very well initially and was fighting with Stroll and Massa in the top six until a terrible lapse of judgment at Turn 7 broke the car. Hulkenberg can only blame himself for squandering a decent haul of points for Renault.

30 Jolyon Palmer
Renault RS17

Start: 20th
Finish: Retired
Strategy: (super-soft/retired)

Rating: N/A

It's impossible to rate Palmer's performance, as the car let him down too often. He had to skip qualifying thanks to a fuel fire in final practice and an ignition problem discovered en route to the grid spoiled his race.

He admits Hulkenberg has been on another level this year, but Palmer never got to find out how close he could get here.

9 Marcus Ericsson
Sauber-Ferrari C36

Start: 17th
Finish: 11th
Strategy: 2 stops (soft/super-soft/super-soft)

Rating: 7

Ericsson paid for not getting the tyres up to temperature on his first qualifying run and flat-spotting them, but drove well in the race.

He battled hard with Vandoorne's McLaren and team-mate Wehrlein and was desperate to hang on for a first point in F1, but floor damage slowed him down and he conceded to team orders to cover Vandoorne's late charge.

94 Pascal Wehrlein
Sauber-Ferrari C36

Start: 14th
Finish: 10th
Strategy: 3 stops (super-soft/soft/super-soft/super-soft)

Rating: 8

Sauber was cast adrift on Friday, but adding downforce allowed Wehrlein to get the tyres working and he heroically dragged the car into Q2 at Alonso's expense.

The early part of his race was spoiled by an engine problem, but with that corrected he was back up to speed and would probably have passed Ericsson's hobbled car even without team orders.