Azerbaijan: Better pace leads to points for Daniel

Daniel shows improved speed while braving the bumps to score points for the second time in 2022 with an eighth-place finish in Baku.

Race data
Azerbaijan (round 8 of 22), 12 June 2022
Baku City Circuit, 51 laps, 6.003km
Qualified: 12th
Finished: 8th
Laps per position: 1 lap (4th), 5 laps (5th), 9 laps (6th), 9 laps (7th), 13 laps (8th), 5 laps (9th), 1 lap (11th), 8 laps (12th).
Pit stops/tyres: Lap 33 (hard/medium)
Fastest lap: 1:48.276 (13th, lap 44)
Points this event: 4
Points this season: 15 (13th in world championship)

Daniel's download
"I'm happy with the weekend in general, and obviously it's nice to get back into the points. The harder tyre was better, and obviously in the first stint there were some team orders to stay behind (McLaren teammate) Lando (Norris) when he was on the medium tyre in front of me. Later in the race, I thought the medium I was on would have been better with lower fuel, but it wasn't. Lando was quicker on the hard and caught me, but we had the team orders come in and kept everything in line.

"Eighth and ninth … I think that's where we were on pace here, if we're being honest. Even if the team had said to me near the end 'release Lando and let him attack (Fernando) Alonso … we saw in the first stint he could still pull away. The last stint when I was on the fresh medium – I felt I had two laps to get on the back of Alonso and have a crack. I caught him a little bit, but not even close enough to use the DRS so I realised pretty early on that it wasn't going to happen. We're high on drag at the moment and that's hurting us, so that was definitely our pace in the race.

"I can confirm the porpoising is real though, I can tell you that much! With such a long straight here, and with it being so bumpy, it was wild. That was the first time I've had it bad – it definitely rattled you.

"We've found some good stuff in the car since Monaco and I've been trying to adapt my style to the McLaren – clearly it's been a bit of a struggle – but there's a few things we've discovered that work better with my natural style. So there were definitely some good moments this weekend where we were able to put that to use, and so while it wasn't amazing, it was definitely better and a step in the right direction.

"Canada's next, and I love that place. It's been so long since we've been there. It's been a standout place for me, obviously my first win in 2014 and then the last time we were there with Renault when I had a really good race after a good qualifying. It'll be a similar set-up to Baku, so hopefully we can sort out a little of the straight-line stuff.

"I hope in these new cars we can still attack the kerbs, it's why Canada is usually so fun because you can attack the chicanes, drop a wheel in the grass and just muscle it. It feels a bit like a go-kart track, the way you attack it feels that way. So I hope we can still drive the Montreal track as it should be driven."

How Daniel's race unfolded
* Qualified 12th, ended first lap in 12th place.
* Advanced to 11th on lap 9 after Sainz/Ferrari retired.
* Moved up to 7th on lap 10 after rivals pitted under virtual safety car.
* Advanced to sixth on lap 18 after Alonso/Alpine pitted.
* Up to fourth on lap 20, passed by Gasly/AlphaTauri and demoted to fifth on lap 21.
* Passed by Hamilton/Mercedes on lap 26, dropped to sixth.
* Pitted under virtual safety car on lap 33, dropped to ninth.
* Advanced to eighth on lap 39 after Tsunoda/AlphaTauri pitted.
* Set his fastest lap of the race on lap 44.
* Finished in 8th place after 51 laps, 92.207secs behind race-winner Verstappen/Red Bull, 3 seconds behind Alonso/Alpine in seventh and 0.3secs ahead of Norris/McLaren in ninth.

Next race
Round 9: Canada (Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve), 19 June
Last race (2019): qualified 4th, finished 6th
Career: 6 races, 66 points, 1 win, 2 podiums, 5 points finishes
Best finish: 1st (2014)
Canada highlights: Took his maiden F1 win for Red Bull Racing in 2014. Finished third for Red Bull in 2017. Qualified inside the top six in five of the past six visits to Montreal. Finished sixth from fourth on the grid for Renault in his most recent Canadian GP in 2019.