How Verstappen picked race-winning F1 Azerbaijan GP strategy for Red Bull

Just like at Monza, Max Verstappen stormed to a dominant Formula 1 win at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, with the reigning world champion once again playing a bigger role than just the driving, according to Red Bull team principal Laurent Mekies.

In Italy, Verstappen insisted on using an extremely low-downforce set-up, even though some senior team members thought running slightly more wing would be better. In Azerbaijan, it wasn’t about the car set-up, but more about the strategy.

Verstappen was the only top-four driver on the Baku grid to start the race on hard tyres – and that, Mekies says, was largely down to the Dutchman’s insistence.

“We looked at Saturday's qualifying session with the six or seven red flags,” the Frenchman related.

“Obviously, here there is a long history of many, many safety cars. Max had a very clear idea that it will become a race where you just drive, waiting for the safety car. You try to wait as long as you can until the safety car comes, because otherwise somebody is going to have a cheap pitstop and it's not going to be you.”

Verstappen’s thoughts, according to Mekies, went back to a specific part of the Italian GP: “In some respects Monza was a bit like that as well, where we all tried to extend. At some stage in Monza, if you recall, we had to pit because our tyres were pretty much gone. At that time we have been exposed for a few laps to a safety car.”

Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing

Mekies refers to the fact that Lando Norris ran longer than Verstappen in Italy, and during those laps McLaren could have benefited from a potential safety car. It never came, but Red Bull – and Verstappen in particular – wanted to avoid such a scenario in Baku. “Max has pushed a lot for that,” the team boss added.

In the end, Red Bull went along with it, although Mekies stressed the approach did carry some risks: “It doesn't come for free. It doesn't come for free at the race start. And it doesn't come for free because it's exposing you during other parts of the race. If a safety car happens on lap 10, you will not find that funny if you have started on hard.”

Mekies noted that in such a situation, those who started on mediums could switch to hards, while the reverse – pitting and running to the end on mediums – is theoretically trickier, even though in practice it turned out to be possible given the lifespan of Pirelli's C5 tyre.

Ultimately, Verstappen’s vision carried the most weight behind the scenes. “He had very, very clear in his mind that he wanted to exploit the pace of the car and disappear with the hards, and he has done exactly that,” Mekies said.

Nevertheless, Mekies was reluctant to claim that Red Bull’s race pace in Baku was significantly better than the opposition.

“Compared to George Russell, I think it's relatively possible to read,” he analysed. “I think the gap was probably a couple of tenths [per lap], but nothing more than that. In fairness, also in qualifying – maybe not Q3, but qualifying in general – they were no more than two tenths away.”

Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing

Photo by: Andrew Ferraro / LAT Images via Getty Images

McLaren’s race pace is hard to judge. The papaya team had a messy weekend in Baku, but Mekies believes its true speed never really showed on Sunday.

“McLaren is much more difficult to read, because they were not finding any free air,” he pointed out. “We have seen them extremely fast at some point on Friday morning, Friday afternoon and Saturday morning. We'll probably never know what the real pace is in the race, but there’s certainly no room to relax for us.”