Mark Hughes on how De Vries influenced the outcome of the race in Baku

Mark Hughes, an expert on the championship’s official website, commented on the events of yesterday’s race in Baku, which predetermined the outcome.

Nick de Vries unwittingly but very strongly influenced the scenario according to which the events of the Grand Prix of Azerbaijan developed, although of course not at all in the way debutant AlphaTauri would like.

On lap 10 of the race, when he hit a guardrail at turn 5, his car had a broken tie rod and he had to stop in the turn 6 safety zone. This led to the safety car exiting, leaving the Red Bull drivers of changed position: Max Verstappen lost the lead to Sergio Pérez.

“You just had bad luck,” the Mexican said to his partner after the finish.
“Yes, that happens,” Verstappen replied. “Last year in Jeddah you were also in a similar situation.”

In the race Max is talking about, Nicholas Latifi crashed the car shortly after Perez, who was leading the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, pitted and eventually Verstappen won, while Sergio was only fourth.

Max swerved into the pit lane yesterday just after de Vries crashed, but before the safety car took off, which happened about a minute after the incident. At that point, the two-time world champion was already back on track and his car was near the 2nd corner of the track.

This allowed Pérez, as well as Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc, to get ahead of Max, as the peloton’s speed was limited after the safety car exited. It was this circumstance that influenced the final result: for the remaining forty-something circles, Verstappen was unable to get close enough to his partner’s car to use the DRS system. Both drove as fast as possible.

When de Vries’ car came to a stop in the turn 6 departure area, Verstappen was driving between turns 13 and 14 and Red Bull had ample time to instruct his driver to stay on track in case the safety car showed up. But the team felt that Nick simply made a mistake, didn’t fit into the corner and went straight, so now he will reverse and return to the track.

At that time they did not yet know that AlphaTauri’s car was damaged and could not continue. The race management did not know this either, so the safety car did not leave immediately. But it turned out that De Vries’ crash coincided with the decisive phase of Perez’s actions, who tried to get ahead of his partner, and this also influenced Red Bull’s decision.

Sergio was overtaking Max and by lap 9 the interval between their cars was already less than a second, allowing the use of DRS. It seemed that Pérez was already preparing an attack on Verstappen in lap 10 (in which de Vries stopped).

If he was ahead of his partner, he would have been given priority right to a pit stop even without a safety car, and Verstappen would have had to drive an extra lap, although he was already starting to have problems with his tires. In such a scenario, Sergio’s advantage would most likely only increase.

The team understood this and so they called Max to the pit stop in advance, as they were sure that de Vries would get back on track.

It can be said that the events that predetermined the outcome of the race began on Friday, when Nick did not fit into the 3rd corner during qualifying and only then was able to complete a circle with a more or less representative result, after which he finished in last row of the starting field.

During Friday’s practice he posted an impressive sixth fastest time and for the first time in the season he looked ahead of his AlphaTauri teammate, Yuki Tsunoda. If he had not made a mistake in qualifying, his race would have turned out differently and the chance of an incident that coincided in time with the duel between Verstappen and Pérez would certainly have been much smaller.

In general, Sergio was helped by a combination of external circumstances that were successful for him. But in the first segment of the distance he overtook his partner and was already able to use DRS, and in the second segment he drove fast enough to prevent Max from approaching attack distance.

Coming back to Nick de Vries, we can assume that the good form he showed in training on Friday, against the background of AlphaTauri’s gradually picking up pace, suggests that he will still have the opportunity to influence in the future the results of the Grand Prix, but in a more positive way.