The Azerbaijan Grand Prix 2018 was the 4th round of the 2018 F1 season, and took place at the Baku City Circuit in Baku, Azerbaijan, on April 29th.
Lewis Hamilton won the race after starting in the 2nd position, followed by Kimi Räikkönen, and Sergio Pérez completing the podium.
Sebastian Vettel started from the pole position, but only managed to finish 4th.
Final results
Race evolution
Pit Stops
There were a total of 36 pit stops during the race.
The most popular pit stop windows were:
- Laps 1-2: 7 stops
- Laps 22-25: 5 stops
- Laps 36-40: 18 stops
The fastest pit stop was Marcus Ericsson's, stopping the clock at 14.998 seconds during his pit stop on lap 39, while the slowest one was was Fernando Alonso's, who stopped the clock at 56.710 seconds, 41.712 seconds slower than Ericsson, during his pit stop on lap 1.
These times include the time the driver spent going through the pit lane, as well as the actual time he stopped for the mechanics to work on his car.
Strategy
We saw a variety of options in terms of pit stop strategies during this race, however most drivers chose a 2 stops. Only 3 drivers tried a 1 stop, 1 driver tried a 3 stops, and 2 drivers tried a 4 stops.
The race winner, Lewis Hamilton, was on a 2 stops strategy.
1 stop
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13Daniel Ricciardo
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11Max Verstappen
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11Valtteri Bottas
2 stops
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4Kimi Räikkönen
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5Fernando Alonso
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2Kevin Magnussen
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5Sergio Pérez
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5Romain Grosjean
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5Pierre Gasly
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4Carlos Sainz
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1Lewis Hamilton
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2Lance Stroll
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7Charles Leclerc
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3Sebastian Vettel
3 stops
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9Brendon Hartley
4 stops
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7Marcus Ericsson
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7Stoffel Vandoorne
Excluding those drivers who could not finish the race, those on a 2 stops strategy gained 3.2 positions on average, the ones on a 3 stops strategy gained 9 positions on average, while those on a 4 stops strategy gained 7 positions on average.
Despite of the average possitons gained or lost, and considering a deeper analysis of the performance of each strategy, we consider the 2 stops strategy as the optimal for this race.
It is important to note that this might not always be the case for other races held at the Baku City Circuit, as the conditions might change from year to year, in terms of wheel degradation, accidents, safety cars, etc.
Incidents
The reace did not end without incidents... 7 drivers out of the original 20 who started did not managed to cross the finish line.
These included, Valtteri Bottas, who had a puncture that could not be repaired on lap 48, Romain Grosjean, and Nico Hülkenberg, both had to retire due to an accident, and Max Verstappen, Daniel Ricciardo, Esteban Ocon, and Sergey Sirotkin, all of whom retired dure to damage caused by a collision with other cars.
Puncture
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Valtteri BottasLap 48
Accident
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Romain GrosjeanLap 42
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Nico HülkenbergLap 10
Collision
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Max VerstappenLap 39
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Daniel RicciardoLap 39
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Esteban OconLap 0
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Sergey SirotkinLap 0
Qualifying
Sebastian Vettel managed to get the pole position by 0.179 seconds and a final lipe time of 1:41.498. Right next to him, completing the first line of the grid, was Lewis Hamilton.
Track evolution
As the qualifying session went on, with the track rubbering in, and the drivers testing the limits of the grip of their cars, the times per lap dropped, and 8 out of the 15 drivers that took place in Q2 were able to improve their times.
The Q3 is the time were all the remaining drivers put all their cards on the table, even those with a superior car who might have been managing their times in Q1 and Q2 push their cars to the limit in Q3. It therefore comes as no surprise that all of the drivers that took place in Q3 managed to improve their times in this last session.