Azerbaijan: Graining hampers gains for Daniel in Baku

Fluctuating lap times and extreme graining on a one-stop strategy sees Daniel looking for answers after finishing in 13th place.

Race data

Azerbaijan (Round 17 of 24), 13-15 September, 2024
Baku City Circuit: 6.003km, 51 laps
Qualified: 16th (started 14th after Gasly/Alpine and Hamilton/Mercedes penalties)
Finished: 13th
Laps per position: 10th (1 lap), 11th (2 laps), 12th (6 laps), 13th (12 laps), 14th (2 laps), 15th (28 laps)
Pit stops/tyres: Lap 49 (hard/soft)
Fastest lap: 1min 48.380secs (17th), lap 39
Points this event: 0
Points this season: 12 (14th in world championship)

Daniel's download

“I felt like we dropped so far back in the race that I was in no-man’s land.

“We tried to do what we could, and afterwards my race my engineer Pierre [Hamelin] apologised, he said ‘I was telling you a lot of things, we were trying to help’, and it was helping … but we were all just scratching our heads wondering why we had so much tyre graining. We expected some, but losing two to three seconds a lap wasn’t what we were expecting. Everyone was trying to chime in to help us clear it, and it was so weird … we dropped so much but then all of a sudden it started to clear, and my lap time swing was four seconds … it was crazy from when it was really bad to when it cleared. I never would have expected it to come back the way it did.

“There were a handful of laps where I was doing everything I could to get a lap time out of it, we had to make up a lot of ground. I was using as much of the track as I could, I felt like I was brushing as many walls as possible to eke every bit out of it, but it was so tricky knowing what the tyre was going to do from one lap to the next. There was a safety car at the end, but we were well out of the race at that point.

“What was most frustrating today was that [RB teammate] Yuki [Tsunoda] had damage and he couldn’t race … I’m very curious as to how his race would have gone. Maybe he’d have no graining, maybe he’d have the same … just from a team point of view it would have been good to know. All we know now is that I had a lot of graining, so we can assume it would have been the same on Yuki’s car but we don’t know, so we’re restricted on learning and moving forward from that because we don’t have the other reference. You want him to finish, and so we can gather whatever data we could.

“I didn’t really expect to be out in Q1 on Saturday, to be honest. I remember going in a bit deep into Turn 4 so I knew there was some lap time left on the table, but otherwise the lap didn’t feel too bad. I knew I could always find a bit more, but I felt like we were probably through and then when I found out we weren’t …  I wasn’t shocked, and then I saw the times and everyone’s so tight on a long lap on a street circuit … it’s quite unusual. I guess everyone put in some good laps and that little mistake cost me. Frustrating, a Q1 exit is never nice.

“So, a bit of a tough race, but we’ve got Singapore in a few days and I’m glad we go back to another track soon and don’t have to dwell on this one for too long.”

DR’s race recap

* Qualified 16th, started 14th on hard tyres after post-qualifying penalties for Gasly/Alpine and Hamilton/Mercedes.
* Passed by Norris/McLaren on lap 1, to 15th.
* Overtook teammate Tsunoda/RB on lap 4 for 14th.
* Advanced to 12th after Colapinto/Williams pitted on lap 11.
* Up to 11th on lap 12 as Alonso/Aston Martin pitted.
* Advanced to 10th on lap 13 as Verstappen/Red Bull and Russell/Mercedes pitted.
* Dropped to 13th on lap 20 after being passed by Hulkenberg/Haas.
* Fell to 15th on lap 22 after being passed by Hamilton and Bearman/Haas.
* Pitted on lap 49 for soft tyres, resumed in 15th place.
* Advanced to 13th on lap 50 after Perez/Red Bull and Sainz/Ferrari crash.
* Finished 13th under virtual safety car, 2mins 26secs behind race-winner Piastri/McLaren and 1.9secs behind Gasly in 12th.

DR’s next destination

Round 18: Singapore (Marina Bay), 20-22 September  
Singapore in 2022 (most recent race): qualified 17th, finished 5th
In F1: 10 races, 4 podiums, 89 points, 7 points finishes
Best qualifying: 2nd (2015, 2016)
Best finish: 2nd (2015, 2016, 2017)