Red Bull’s Max Verstappen extended his lead in F1’s title race with victory at 2022 Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
Sergio Perez initially led the race after snatching the lead at the opening corner from pole-sitter, Charles Leclerc, with the latter then pitting at the end of Lap 9 following the retirement of his Ferrari teammate, Carlos Sainz due to a hydraulic failure.
Perez however struggled for pace and lost the lead to Verstappen on Lap 15 with the Dutchman sprinting away to a victory after Leclerc retired at the end of Lap 20 with a power unit failure.
Ferrari power backed Alfa Romeo’s Guanyu Zhou and Haas’ Kevin Magnussen meanwhile retired on Laps 24 and 33 respectively with technical related issues, which raises questions over the reliability of Ferrari power units.
Perez finished second ahead of George Russell, Lewis Hamilton, Pierre Gasly, Sebastian Vettel, Fernando Alonso, Daniel Ricciardo, Lando Norris and Esteban Ocon, who rounded out the top ten finishers.
In the title race, Verstappen extended his lead to 21 points as Perez climbed to second in the driver standings, following Leclerc’s failure to finish the race.
Red Bull meanwhile extended their lead in the constructors’ standings over Ferrari to 80 points as third-placed Mercedes cut their deficit to the Scuderia down to 38 points.
At lights out, Leclerc got a solid start but a lock-up coupled with a start reaction time 0.002s slower than Perez saw the Mexican snatch the lead into Turn One, whilst Yuki Tsunoda was the only other top-ten driver to lose position at the start as he conceded eighth to Vettel.
Perez proceeded to build a solid lead over Leclerc until Leclerc’s Ferrari teammate – Sainz suffered a hydraulic failure on Lap 9, which led to the Virtual Safety Car (VSC) being deployed until the end of Lap 10.
Leclerc consequently pitted at the end of Lap 9 and re-joined on fresh hard tyres in third as Russell, Gasly, Hamilton, Tsunoda and Vettel also pitted, with Hamilton finding himself leapfrogged by Vettel due to Mercedes double-stacking him behind Russell.
Vettel three laps later attempted to pass Ocon who had stayed out on his hard tyres for ninth but ran too deep down the escape road at Turn 3, consequently re-joining behind Hamilton and Tsunoda.
Verstappen up front reeled in Perez and passed his teammate at the start of Lap 15 as Pere was instructed with the following message of “No fighting!”
Verstappen and Perez then completed their stops on Laps 19 and 17 respectively, which unleashed Leclerc into the lead.
Leclerc’s race however ended with a power unit failure at the end of Lap 20, which handed the lead and eventual race victory to Verstappen as he comfortably led Perez home for a Red Bull one-two finish, which they were denied last season by a tyre failure for Verstappen.
Russell benefitted from the retirements of Sainz and Leclerc to finish third and bag his second podium finish in the last five races, despite there being a second VSC after Haas’ Kevin Magnussen suffered a technical issue on Lap 33.
Hamilton pitted again under the second VSC which paid off as Gasly stayed out with the Brit forcing his way past the Frenchman into Turn 3 on Lap 44, which enabled Hamilton to eventually finish fourth with Gasly completing the top five.
Vettel, Alonso, Ricciardo, Norris and Ocon rounded out the top ten despite Ricciardo and Norris being instructed to hold position in the closing laps.
F1 now head to Montreal, Canada for the first Canadian Grand Prix since 2019 after a two-season absence which takes place from 17-19 June.
| Position | Driver | Team | Laps | Time |
| 1 | Max Verstappen | Red Bull | 51 | 1h 34m 05.941 |
| 2 | Sergio Perez | Red Bull | 51 | + 20.823 |
| 3 | George Russell | Mercedes | 51 | + 45.995 |
| 4 | Lewis Hamilton | Mercedes | 51 | + 71.679 |
| 5 | Pierre Gasly | AlphaTauri | 51 | + 77.299 |
| 6 | Sebastian Vettel | Aston Martin | 51 | + 84.099 |
| 7 | Fernando Alonso | Alpine | 51 | + 88.596 |
| 8 | Daniel Ricciardo | McLaren | 51 | + 92.207 |
| 9 | Lando Norris | McLaren | 51 | + 92.556 |
| 10 | Esteban Ocon | Alpine | 51 | + 108.184 |
| 11 | Valtteri Bottas | Alfa Romeo | 50 | + 1 Lap |
| 12 | Alex Albon | Williams | 50 | + 1 Lap |
| 13 | Yuki Tsunoda | AlphaTauri | 50 | + 1 Lap |
| 14 | Mick Schumacher | Haas | 50 | + 1 Lap |
| 15 | Nicholas Latifi | Williams | 50 | + 1 Lap |
| RET | Lance Stroll | Aston Martin | 46 | Power |
| RET | Kevin Magnussen | Haas | 31 | Power |
| RET | Guanyu Zhou | Alfa Romeo | 23 | Technical |
| RET | Charles Leclerc | Ferrari | 21 | Power |
| RET | Carlos Sainz | Ferrari | 8 | Hydraulic |
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