The World Championship heads to Baku this weekend for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, the fifteenth round of the season.
The circuit laid out on the streets of the Azerbaijani capital presents a unique challenge in Formula 1, combining extremely fast sections with very tight parts between the buildings of the historic city centre. The Baku City Circuit first appeared on the calendar in 2016, when the race was called the European Grand Prix, before becoming the Azerbaijan Grand Prix the following year.
This year's race runs to an unprecedented timetable as the track action gets underway a day earlier than usual on the Thursday, with the Grand Prix itself taking place on Saturday. This is to avoid clashing with the solemn occasion of Azerbaijan's Remembrance Day, held every year on 27th September.
Baku's 6.003 kilometre circuit features a mix of features that are not found at any other track. In the Old City, the track is very narrow, with the cars passing just centimetres from the walls. There is even a section where there is only enough room for one car at a time. It's a completely different scenario towards the end of the lap: the final sequence of corners leads onto a straight that is over two kilometres long, taken flat out, all the way to the braking zone for Turn 1. In this section, top speed and slipstreaming can play an important role in both qualifying and the race. Finding the right set-up to ensure the car performs well in both slow and fast sections will be key to the weekend. Wind is a variable to take into account, as it can change in both intensity and direction as it funnels between the buildings at different parts of the circuit.
The street circuit's characteristics have often contributed to action-packed races in Baku. In the nine Formula 1 events held so far, the Safety Car has been deployed twelve times, underlining the importance of maintaining a degree of strategic flexibility, as a neutralisation can quickly change the complexion of the race. Pirelli has selected the C3 compound as Hard, C4 as Medium and C5 as Soft this weekend. Traditionally, Baku is a one-stop race. However, the track layout and the possibility of neutralisations mean other scenarios are also possible.
Fred Vasseur: The last few races have demonstrated that our car can deliver a good level of competitiveness, but they have also highlighted how important it is to put every part of the weekend together. Baku is a very specific challenge, where confidence in the car and execution are particularly important. It is also a circuit where the weekend can throw up several variables, so we need to stay focused on ourselves, adapt to whatever situations arise and make the most of every opportunity.
Ferrari in Baku
9 GP contested
2016 Debut: European GP (S. Vettel 4th; K. Raikkonen 4th)
0 Wins
5 (55.56%) Pole Positions
2 (22.22%) Fastest Laps
4 (14.81%) Podiums
Three questions to Giulia Alessandro, Logistics Infrastructures & Wharehouse Manager.
Baku kicks off an unexpected triple-header, given that Sepang has been inserted between this race and Singapore, to be run as the Bahrain Grand Prix. What logistical challenge does this represent?
Giulia Alessandro: Introducing Sepang into this triple-header certainly represents an unprecedented logistical challenge. Fortunately, we received enough notice that the Bahrain Grand Prix would be relocated to Malaysia to allow us to plan the shipments and organise ourselves in good time, particularly when it came to materials being sent by sea. We thus prepared different kits for each of the three destinations and managed the changes without having to resort to any emergency measures.
The real challenge, however, will be Sepang itself. Formula 1 has not raced there for many years, so we will have to manage a number of unknowns once we arrive on site. On top of that, we will be operating in particularly hot and humid conditions, which will require very careful planning of the set-up and operational activities. Our aim is to ensure that the team has the best possible working conditions, so that everything can function as smoothly as possible, both logistically and from a racing perspective.
Baku is technically in Europe, but in many respects it's like a "flyaway" race. What is it like from a logistical perspective?
GA: Baku is managed in exactly the same way as a "flyaway" race, working with a mixed configuration, in which some of the materials travel by sea and others by air. However, we are coming off a long run of European races, where all the transportation is carried out by road, so switching from one mode of transport to another is always a significant challenge. In reality, the most demanding period was the week immediately after the last European race. In the space of a few days, we had to manage the return of all the equipment from Madrid while simultaneously preparing and air-freighting everything required for the trip to Baku.
It was a demanding task both for the personnel in Maranello, who prepared and reconfigured the materials, and for everyone involved in the logistics operations. The calendar presents us with extremely tight deadlines: the journey from Madrid to Maranello already takes many hours, and just two days after getting everything back to the factory, we had to be ready to leave for Baku. In effect, we had to completely rethink the organisation of our freight within a very short space of time, moving from the approach used for European races to that required for intercontinental events. It is a complex process, but an essential one to ensure that all the necessary equipment arrives at the destination at the right time and in the best possible condition, allowing the team to work without interruption.
Much like the team designing the car, at a certain point in the season logistics also begins to shift resources away from the current season in preparation for the next one. Where do we stand in that respect?
GA: For the logistics team, there is no specific moment when we stop working on the current season and begin focusing on the next. It is an activity that runs in parallel throughout the year. The production lead times for certain components, as well as the organisation of shipments, particularly those sent by sea, which require a great deal of time, mean that we have to plan well in advance. That's why we are constantly working on both the current season and the next one, practically without interruption. That said, from this point in the season, activities relating to the following year inevitably begin to intensify. We recently received final confirmation of the calendar, which allows us to define more precisely the activities required to close out the current season and prepare for the start of the next. We already know that some particularly demanding journeys lie ahead and we are working to prepare for them as effectively as possible. The particular nature of our work means that we always have to plan a long way ahead. While we are focused on the end of this season, we are already planning the start of the next championship and, in some cases, even the second half of the following season. That may seem a long way off, but it actually arrives much sooner than you might think. One of the main challenges is the extremely short gap between the end of the final race and the start of the following season. In many cases, the material is in Italy for barely a fortnight before it has to be sent out again to the first destinations of the new year. That is why it is essential to plan ahead as much as possible and share our plans with suppliers in good time, so that they can organise their resources, activities and production capacity. Only through careful preparation can we manage deadlines that are genuinely very challenging.
Azerbaijan Grand Prix - Facts and Figures
7.6. The width in meters of the track at Turn 8, one of the narrowest sections on the entire calendar. Drivers must thread their cars through this particularly tight piece of track, which is a challenge for those behind the wheel, as well as being one of the most iconic images of the Baku City Circuit.
9. Of the eleven commonly accepted climate zones, this is the number of them that can be found in Azerbaijan's 86,000 square kilometres, from the semi-desert conditions around Baku to the humid subtropical climate in the south and the high-altitude tundra of the Caucasus.
31. The difference, in minutes, between the longest and shortest races held at this circuit. The shortest was the 2019 edition, won by Valtteri Bottas in just under 92 minutes, while the longest was the 2017 race, which Daniel Ricciardo won in two hours and three minutes.
141. The distance, in metres, between the pole position grid slot and the braking zone for Turn 1, the shortest on the entire calendar.
4,466. The height, in metres, of Mount Bazarduzu, the highest peak in the country, on the border with Russia.
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