Yesterday at 12:45
Without Sebastian Vettel's moment of madness, Daniel Ricciardo's
three-car overtake in the 2017 Azerbaijan GP probably would have
faded into F1's history as a case of "remember when?" By Lap 19 of
the 51 tour affair, nine laps had been completed under the safety
car, Ricciardo had pitted with technical problems, and Max
Verstappen's Renault power unit had cried enough and failed. As the
field prepared to resume racing, Lewis Hamilton, as race leader,
slowed down to control the safety car restart, doing so exiting
Turn 15, the fast-downhill left-hander. But as he did so, Vettel,
close behind, was caught out and hit the back of the Mercedes, and
in a fit of rage at believing Hamilton had brake-tested his world
championship rival, Vettel drew alongside and rammed, at slow
speed, into a bemused Hamilton. More chaos was to swiftly follow
on the immediate restart with the Force Indias of Sergio Perez and
Esteban Ocon colliding at Turn 2, with the debris enough for a red
flag to be thrown, the cars pitting at the end of Lap 22. It was
here that the race went truly wild Baku chaos Vettel was handed a
10-second stop/go penalty for "dangerous driving", the most severe
in-race penalty F1 stewards can hand out short of disqualification
as the field prepared for the restart, with Hamilton retaining his
lead from Vettel. On this restart, Ricciardo pulled off his famous
move. As Lance Stroll, Nico Hulkenberg and Felipe Massa battled
over third, Ricciardo simply sent it down the inside and braked as
late as he dared, and stole ahead of the trio. It would prove to
be the race-deciding overtake. Shortly afterwards, Vettel served
his penalty as incredible drama hit Hamilton, whose headrest had
not been properly re-attached after the red flag and came loose. He
tried to slot it back into place, but was told by the FIA to pit to
fix it, eliminating him from contention as Ricciardo moved into the
pound seat. It was not a chance he would give up, coming from 10th
on the grid after a Q3 crash and last in the race to score his sole
victory of the season. Vettel, despite his penalty, actually
extended his points lead over Hamilton to 14, the duo finishing
fourth and fifth as Valtteri Bottas, himself last at one point,
stormed back and stole second, literally on the line, from Stroll,
who claimed a maiden F1 podium. It was one of those races that
most of the 20 drivers would have felt they had a shot at winning,
but it was Ricciardo who emerged from the chaos.
