Colapinto outscores Sargeant in one race – Up/Down in Azerbaijan

It certainly is time for heroes. The way F1 can avoid its post-Netflix surge slump is for drivers to show a bit of personality, not just be media trained beige bots having a pleasant time.

Piastri ignored advice to lunge for the win. Colapinto blew away his predecessor in one race. All Ollie Bearman knows in F1 is showing up at the last moment and scoring points. Baku delivered.

As it all ramps up, could we be in for F1’s most dramatic season finale (apart from that finale) in years?

Norris closes in on Verstappen. McLaren overhauls Red Bull. Christian Horner is mildly annoyed. It is all, certainly, kicking off.

Here’s what was going up and down in Baku.

Goin’ Down

Down in Mexico

Piastri and Leclerc go at it for 40 laps, no problem.

Perez and Sainz start to squabble and last about 40 yards before putting it in the wall.

If you were in the Mexican’s position, why wouldn’t you leave more of a margin instead of pinning Sainz against the barrier? A solid fourth is better than a DNF, which handed McLaren a massive swing in the constructors’ – the first time it has led that title fight in ten years.

Surely half the professional drivers round the world must look at the second Red Bull seat and wonder what on earth is going on. Imagine if it had newly crowned triple IndyCar champ Alex Palou or championship-leading WEC ace Kevin Estre or… there’s a few candidates out there.

Newey has his work cut out

Lance Stroll got all philosophical by declaring “This is not a car” while wrestling his Aston Martin round Baku during practice.

Better crack out the drawing board early Adrian.

RB VISA what are they called now?

RB has done a bit of a Sauber in recent weeks, having not scored a point in four races.

Tsunoda was a top-ten machine during the first half of the season but, in a familiar tale up and down the grid, new upgrades seem to have sent the team backwards.

Ricciardo looks increasingly like he’ll be replaced by fellow Antipodean Liam Lawson too for 2025 – all a bit doom and gloom in Faenza.

Poles apart

After surprising in Monza, Ferrari reverted to type by converting another brilliant Leclerc pole into a limp race effort.

Will it sharpen up in time for Hamilton?

Goin’ Up

Minster of Defence deposed

Norris pulled out some brilliant defensive skills to slow up Perez and prevent the undercut on Piastri.

Imagine if the Bristol native had found the rearguard magic against Piastri in Monza? Maybe this is his true calling now. Not winning races. Just stopping others from doing so.

Colapointo

Franco Colapinto outscored his Williams predecessor Logan Sargeant with a single race finish, after a brilliant 8th in Baku.

The Argentinian showed complete composure where the American so often didn’t, calmly coming through 51 laps of F1’s craziest circuit to help cap off a double Grove points haul after Alex Albon came in seventh.

With it looking like there’s no room at the F1 inn, will Colapinto be rewarded with a year at the back of the Williams garage with the cans on?

F1’s coolest customer

Fans moan that grand prix drivers are over-coached these days, that they simply do what their engineers tell them without cogitating on it a bit themselves.

Good to enjoy Oscar Piastri completely ignore his very capable race engineer Tom Stallard then and fling it up the inside of Leclerc in a move he only rated himself as having a “50/50” chance of coming off.

That’s what we want – less common sense, more caution to the wind!

Bearing it all

Despite having a rubbish F2 season (for a variety of reasons) Oliver Bearman demonstrated just why he’s so highly rated by scoring a valuable point for Haas in just his second GP, slipping by team-mate Nico Hülkenberg late on who was dozing following the track still running green after the Perez/Sainz smash.

Two F1 races, two points finishes. The first driver in F1 history to score points for two different teams in their first two races. What a star.