Regardless of Norris’s ill fortune in qualifying, Oscar Piastri’s victory was a brilliant and fully-deserved one.
But sometimes races play out not according to merit but just to random fortune, especially on street tracks. Consider Daniel Ricciardo’s Baku victory of 2017. He’d crashed in Q3, putting him just 10th on the grid in a Red Bull which should have qualified on the second row. He was running ninth in the early laps but the team was watching with alarm how his front brake temperatures were rising fast. A piece of Kimi Räikkönen’s front wing — the Ferrari had made contact with Valtteri Bottas’s Mercedes on the first lap — was lodged in one of Ricciardo’s front brake ducts.
The team left him out as long as they dared – so as to lose him fewer places when he would inevitably have to pit early to have the debris removed before the brakes fried – but that was only five laps. When he rejoined to begin lap six – now on the harder tyre, with the intention of going to the end in a damage recovery drive – there were only three cars behind him. Ricciardo’s error in qualifying was looking particularly costly now.
But…
Daniil Kvyat’s Toro Rosso broke down, coming to a halt at an awkward place and causing the safety car to be deployed on lap 12. Almost everyone had started on the softer tyre but this safety car provided a perfect opportunity to get onto the harder tyre on which to get to the end. Red Bull at this point played a masterstroke – by bringing Ricciardo in along with everyone else. But because he’d already used the harder tyre in those six laps since his enforced first stop – they would put him on the softer tyre, perfect for picking off the harder-tyred cars ahead of him on the safety car restart. Ricciardo’s fantastic late-braking judgement made him the perfect driver to exploit this situation. But it would probably mean he’d have to make an extra stop to get to the end.
Soft-tyred Ricciardo makes his move on Magnussen at the restart
Mark Thompson/Getty via Red Bull
He immediately scythed past Kevin Magnussen into Turn 1 and was lining up a group ahead of him ready for the next lap when the safety car was deployed again – this time to clear further debris from the track.
It was lap 19 as the race got going once more and Ricciardo immediately dive-bombed his way past Nico Hülkenberg. No sooner had he done this than there was another incident – the two Force Indias of Sergio Perez and Esteban Ocon had collided at Turn 2, leaving debris all over the track, some of which then punctured Räikkönen’s tyre, creating yet more debris as he trailed back to the pits. The safety car came out yet again but Fernando Alonso radioed that it might be a better idea to throw a red flag so that the debris could be properly cleared. Race director Charlie Whiting agreed.
With all the carnage ahead of him, plus his overtaking moves, Ricciardo was now up to fifth as the race was put on pause. With everyone free now to change tyres, they were all on the softer compound which from here would be good to go the distance. Which meant that Ricciardo was no longer going to have to make that extra stop. His race was coming alive. He could be overheard talking to Helmut Marko on the grid how he thought he could probably pass both the Williams cars (of Lance Stroll and Felipe Massa) immediately ahead of him in one go. When the race finally began again, he did exactly that! He was now running third, with no more stops to make.
Soft tyre gamble worked when red flag gave Ricciardo a ‘free’ extra stop
Clive Rose/Getty via Red Bull
Third would have counted as a great recovery from being almost at the back after five laps.
But…
On the second restart Sebastian Vettel, running second behind Lewis Hamilton, had deliberately driven into the side of his rival in retaliation for what he believed was a brake test (later telemetry showed Hamilton had not braked, but merely lifted off). Vettel would be given a 10sec stop-and-go penalty for this. Then Hamilton’s cockpit surround worked itself loose – and he was obliged by race control to pit to have it secured. What that also secured of course was the most unlikely of victories for Ricciardo. He made his in-lap, as he described, “giggling like a schoolboy”. Which seemed apt after the schoolboy error in qualifying, but he’d been perfect in grabbing the opportunities lady luck threw at him subsequently.