BAKU, Azerbaijan (AP) — As Charles Leclerc’s Formula One title challenge falls apart, Max Verstappen is there to take advantage.
Verstappen extended his Formula One championship lead by winning the Azerbaijan Grand Prix on Sunday after Leclerc retired from the lead with an engine failure.
Leclerc started from pole but immediately lost the lead to Sergio Pérez, Verstappen’s Red Bull teammate, in the first corner. The Ferrari driver regained the lead with a smart strategy call to pit under “virtual safety car” speed restrictions while the two Red Bull cars stayed out.
Leclerc seemed to poised to challenge for the win, but the Monaco driver’s car started spewing smoke on lap 20 of 51 and he had to pull into the pits. It was his second retirement in three races.
“It hurts. We really need to look into that for it to not happen again. I don’t really find the right words to describe, obviously it is very disappointing,” Leclerc said.
Verstappen had passed Pérez shortly before Leclerc’s failure and the reigning F1 champion cruised to his fifth win of the season.
Verstappen took the win a year after he was headed to victory in Baku, only for a blown tire to hurl him into the wall while leading with three laps to go. There were more late reliability concerns when Verstappen told his team the car felt odd under braking, but he was able to make it to the finish.
Red Bull went 1-2 in the race with Pérez finishing second, while Mercedes was third and fourth with George Russell and Lewis Hamilton.
Pérez, who won in Azerbaijan last year, said Red Bull made the “right call” not to let him fight Verstappen for the win and said he struggled with worn tires.
Ferrari had a terrible day as both Leclerc and teammate Carlos Sainz Jr. failed to finish, as did the Ferrari-powered cars of Zhou Guanyu and Kevin Magnussen.
It was the first time since the Italian Grand Prix in 2020 that the Ferrari team had to retire both cars.