RacingNews365’s 2024 F1 Azerbaijan Grand Prix driver ratings

Oscar Piastri eased to a second grand prix win of his career in Azerbaijan, deploying a good dose of pure killer instinct to lunge past Charles Leclerc into Turn 1 to snatch the lead. 

The McLaren racer, who had gone into the weekend expecting to play second fiddle to Lando Norris’ title charge, followed on from his victory in Hungary to continue a rich vein of form, with his last seven races – stretching back to Austria – bringing three-second places, two wins and a couple of fourth places.

One might even say it is championship-challenging form, with only his slow start costing him. 

Predictably then, Piastri does top the driver ratings from the 2024 F1 Azerbaijan Grand Prix – but who has joined him near the top of the list?

The top five

Oscar Piastri – 9.5 

Piastri’s move on Charles Leclerc at Turn 1 on Lap 20 caught even the Ferrari racer by surprise, considering how far back he was, but it was an expertly judged move on the brakes that once upon a time was the domain of the other Australian, Daniel Ricciardo. He then defended fairly and cleanly for the remainder of Leclerc’s futile pursuit, eventually breaking the DRS as the Ferrari’s tyres died. Piastri cannot be given the perfect 10 owing to the over three-tenths qualifying deficit to Leclerc. 

Charles Leclerc – 9 

Four Baku poles, and Leclerc finally has his best result from them with second place. He was unlucky in that the Ferrari took slightly longer than the McLaren to fire up its hard tyres, undoing all the good work he had done in the first stint on mediums to gap Piastri out in the lead. However, when it came to crunch time, Piastri had one chance to make the move for the lead, did it and drove off. Leclerc failed 28 times to do so. 

Franco Colapinto – 9 

With his eighth-place and four championship points, Colapinto has now scored four times as many as Logan Sargeant did, in 34 fewer attempts. The Argentine could have shrunk into his shell going into qualifying after his practice accident at a track he had never driven before. But Colapinto managed to out-qualify Alex Albon by 0.329s and ran strongly in the race, until he began to fade, understandably, as it went on. He was still on course for points until the Sergio Perez/Carlos Sainz shunt, which bumped him from 10th to eighth.

Sergio Perez – 9 

This was arguably Perez’s best overall weekend since the last Azerbaijan GP in April 2023, as the Mexican out-qualified and simply out-raced Max Verstappen. Perez bettered his team-mate in qualifying for the first time since Miami 2023, and thumped him in the race as well as he was nearly 20 seconds up the road before the crash with Sainz on lap 50 that denied him what would have been a well-earned and well-deserved podium. Perez can take the performance he showed here and use it to push on, even if he was left with a car fit for the recycle bin and no trophy. 

Alex Albon – 8.5

Baku is not Albon’s favourite track on the calendar, but this was Williams’ best chance for a huge haul of points for the remainder of the season given the long straights that have historically played to its strengths. He is docked half a point for being out-qualified by Colapinto by such a big margin but passed the Argentine in the race, and finished ahead of Lewis Hamilton, Ollie Bearman and Nico Hulkenberg in quicker cars. He also finished just 1.9s behind Fernando Alonso in sixth.

The bottom five

Zhou Guanyu – 5 

It was a weekend where no driver had an absolute howler of their own accord, so Zhou’s mark of 5 is the same as Nico Hulkenberg and Daniel Ricciardo – with the only fair way to separate them being by their finishing order in the race. After being out-qualified by Valtteri Bottas, Zhou comfortably finished ahead of his lapped team-mate, but 14th place is about par for a team still searching for a point. 

Lance Stroll – 4 

Stroll might consider himself unlucky for being clattered into by Tsunoda on Lap 1, but on a street track, on the opening lap, you have to consider the possibility that a car ahead might just close the door as Tsunoda did. That’s not to say Stroll was in the wrong as Tsunoda bore the brunt of the incident, but it was just a tad clumsy by Stroll. After beating Alonso in Q1, the Canadian was nearly a full second behind in Q2, putting him 13th on the grid once other penalties had been applied.

Yuki Tsunoda – 4

Tsunoda ruined his race by closing the door on Stroll, something which might be deemed as ‘karma’ down at Aston Martin. He might have been a contender to nick a point in amongst the Haas drivers at the end of the race, but he never got the chance. 

Esteban Ocon – 4

For the second straight year, this was a dreadful visit to Baku for Alpine. whilst Gasly saved a crumb of comfort in the race, Ocon bore the brunt of some awful reliability. He suffered issues throughout practice, with FP3 being stopped due to a fuel pump failure as he ultimately started from the pit lane. But his biggest crime of the weekend was hitting the wall in qualifying when the car appeared to be working in good health. That’s almost unforgivable on a weekend to firmly forget.

Valtteri Bottas – 4

Bottas is now at risk of failing to score points for the first time in his career after another blank in Baku. He did out-qualify Zhou, but was a lapped 16th and last at the end, well behind his team-mate. Bottas is currently 22nd in a 20-car championship, which just about sums up where he and the car are at.