Is Verstappen back in the title race? – F1 Q&A

Lando Norris only finished seventh and championship leader Oscar Piastri crashed out on the first lap at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, which caused chaos for McLaren.

Max Verstappen of Red Bull won his second championship by storm with a dominant victory.

Piastri’s lead in the title race over team-mate Norris narrowed to 25 points, with Verstappen now 69 points adrift of the Australian.

Should Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris be concerned about Max pipping them for the title after a bad weekend in Baku for both McLaren drivers and Max Verstappen’s appearance to go under the radar? – Martin

Before Max Verstappen won the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, McLaren team principal Andrea Stella issued a warning about his threat to the drivers’ championship.

Verstappen was questioned by Stella after the Red Bull driver claimed pole position in Baku.

“A firm ‘ yes'”, he said.

“We don’t need to forget that Max Verstappen is the first one,” he said. In a fast car, the car has won the title for the past four years.

” There are races where McLaren may not enjoy any advantage from a competitiveness point of view. Lando and Oscar are also present, so they won’t always be maximizing the benefits.

“Sometimes, there will be a little bit more points for Oscar and Lando, so they may take some points off each other.”

” We are very aware of this aspect, but we let them race, because they both deserve to pursue their aspirations. Verstappen and Red Bull are therefore in contention for the drivers’ championship.

After the race, Verstappen’s victory, which ultimately reduced his deficit to 69 points, forced Stella to reiterate his position.

But it’s one thing being a naturally cautious F1 team principal who has to maximise his team’s performance every weekend, and ensure they don’t take their eye off the ball. Another example of being an objective observer.

Realistically, Verstappen has a slim chance of winning the title with a McLaren driver.

The gap is the equivalent of nearly three clear victories with only seven grands prix to go. Verstappen would need to close the race against the Australian by an average of just under 10 points per race, to put it another way.

Not very likely, but still possible. Even with the sprints in Austin, Sao Paulo and Qatar added into the equation.

McLaren are coming off two victories on tracks that didn’t match their team’s strengths. Las Vegas is one of the many places where they should be strong once more, Las Vegas.

If Piastri and Norris deliver their best, or close to it, over the remainder of the season, they should easily be able to fend off Verstappen, even allowing for the fact that it appears Red Bull have made a step forward with their car.

Stefano Domenicali, the president of Formula One, recently said that he is considering shorter races because the YouTube highlights of the races are performing very well. Is there anyone else within F1 management pushing for shorter races? Or the teams? – Ricky

The comments the question refers to came from an interview Domenicali gave to Italian media before the race in Monza earlier this month.

Although they made headlines, Domenicali’s words were important to consider when interpreting them.

He stated in a statement that he wanted to increase the number of sprint events.

” Our surveys show the vast majority of the audience wants the drivers to fight for a result, “Domenicali said”. They are sick of free practice, to put it simply. We can’t ignore that fact alone.

The attention span of F1’s newer audience came up. Did Domenicali, however, mention that he was thinking about introducing shorter grands prix? Really, not. That’s an extrapolation.

He claimed that the current Grand Prix “could be a little too long for younger audiences.”

He said, “We’re seeing that highlights do very well on many of our channels.” For those of us who grew up with the current format, everything is fine as is, but there’s a large segment that only wants to see the key moments.

“Things are going very well right now, but we must not rest on our laurels,” he said. The next step must be thought through.

I’m told that, yes, the number of sprint events will go up in the coming years – F1 is considering going as far as 12 per season, which would be half the calendar.

Regarding the remarks that have been taken as implying that he is considering shorter grands prix, Domenicali has been described as a person who is a bit of a kite-flyer to gauge response.

Domenicali’s implication, it seems, was that the sport must consider how to best present the highlights of the races to a variety of audiences, not that he intends to shorten those races’ duration.

Inside F1, reaction from the drivers has been relatively positive – or at least neutral – on the increase in sprints. However, the idea of a grand prix’s length has received some mixed reviews.

The notion that shorter grands prix would be the best way to respond to a demand to watch important moments also has some dubious logic.

Because where do the highlights come from? Longer races have a narrative that can ebb and flow, and within which there is a certain amount of time when events take place.

And what typically occurs during shorter races, like sprints? Less incident. which, by definition, would result in fewer highlights.

What is the difference between the tyre compounds? George Russell complained about having a soft tire recently. What kind of performance advantage exist, and how much do drivers choose the engineers over the drivers? – Jason

You mentioned making comments at the Italian Grand Prix, and Russell actually claimed that he wanted the medium for his final qualifying run because he felt he could do so more quickly.

It served as an illustration of the frequently collective discussions between teams and drivers regarding tire selection.

In Monza, Russell was an outlier. However, the majority of Baku drivers last weekend had a preference for the medium compound over the soft one. Why ? It will take a bit of explaining, so please bear with me.

The rubber’s softness is the main difference between the three tires used by Pirelli to compete in each grand prix. hence the terms “soft,” “medium,” and “hard.”

There are six compounds in all for the season, from the hardest, the C1, to the softest, the C6. Each race has three participants. Depending on the demands of the track, Pirelli selects the tyres it thinks are best for each circuit.

The tougher the track on tyres – whether down to the speed and length of the corners or the abrasiveness of the circuit or both – the harder the tyres need to be.

The compound’s overall grip is reduced, but the durability is increased.

There is a crossover point between compounds in races where the harder compound gains speed while the softer compound gains speed.

Teams decide their race strategy around this sort of information – determining which combination of compounds run in which order and for how long generates the fastest race time.

A driver typically wants the softest compound to qualify for. Since it’s only one lap, it should come as no surprise that the softest rubber will give you the best grip for that brief period of time.

What happened in Baku, though, was that the soft compound was slower over a lap than the medium. Essentially, it was too soft.

This year, the C6 is a new compound. It’s deliberately very soft, and the idea behind introducing it was to try to generate more pit stops, and force teams away from the one-stop strategies that predominate in F1 at the moment.

It hasn’t worked, in all honesty. The C6 is only permitted to be used on tracks with the lowest tire demand. It was first used at Imola, and then Monaco and Canada before Baku last weekend.

The six red flags seen in this weekend’s qualifying beat the previous record of five set at grand prix in 2022 and 2024, according to a statistic that came to mind after qualifying. Why have there been so many record-breaking chaotic sessions over the years? – Neil

Conditions were challenging in Baku last weekend, with a strong gust of wind and a sprinkling of rain.

The walls around the track are close, and F1 cars are very wind-tunnel sensitive.

Grip levels can vary significantly from lap to lap, so a driver can find that a speed at which he took a corner on the previous lap is simply impossible the next. That is what caused the crashes.

Similar events occurred in the previous two races, the 2022 Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix and the 2024 Brazilian Grand Prix.

Both sessions were wet, and the tracks involved, Imola and Interlagos, punish mistakes because they are ‘ old school ‘ – narrow with walls close by, grass beside the track and gravel run-offs.