F1 Paddock Notebook - Azerbaijan GP Sunday

- If anyone had doubts over Mercedes being in another league they were ended by an easy win in Baku, and, as Lewis Hamilton remembered, after Ferrari updated their car it also proved that the team is working brilliantly. And with Valtteri Bottas having such a strong weekend, the first questions arose about an internal title fight.

- Beating Lewis Hamilton in qualifying was important for Bottas’ race but also for his confidence, while at the same time it felt like defeat for Lewis. “I have to work harder to put myself in a better position for the next few races”, he admitted, also warning his teammate that we will not “as nice” as he was at the start anymore.

- But while Lewis seemed to be conscious of the work ahead but calm at the same time, Bottas looked as if he had given it all on the track. “It’s not easy to have Lewis putting pressure on you for the whole race”, he said, adding that would be happy to buy George Russell a beer after getting a DRS for lapping the Williams driver just as Hamilton was getting too close for comfort.

- Russell was another driver who was looking quite tired after the race. He has dealt with an infection after China and hasn’t trained since then. Even though the Brit was saying he was feeling fine, his looks said the opposite.

- At Ferrari, Sebastian Vettel was keeping his usual positive attitude, but recognised he didn’t like the behaviour of the car, specially with the soft tyre. “I was inconsistent, making mistakes. The feeling of the car was horrible.” Teammate Charles Leclerc agreed and, even when asked if he had fun chasing the fastest lap in the end, he said “not actually, it was not a good day in the office.”

- The Ferraris were too slow, especially with the soft tyre, which killed any possibility for the team to be creative com Charles’ strategy. The team actually got lucky with the Virtual Safety Car on Lap 39, as Max Verstappen was close to attack Vettel, but then lost temperature on his tyres and dropped back. “It looks like our car is more sensitive to it”, explained Verstappen, something that also hurt his qualifying. But, overall, Red Bull left Baku hopeful to catch Ferrari sooner than later.

- In the midfield, McLaren recovered well from the China disappointment and scored points with both drivers for the first time since Baku last year, while Lance Stroll showed Racing Point’s strong pace by climbing from 14th to ninth, and Kimi Raikkonen managed to finish in the points for the fourth time in four races even though he started from the pitlane – and was complaining about the lack of grip of his Alfa Romeo.

- On the other hand, Daniel Ricciardo “didn’t think straight for a few seconds”. It was a good way to describe a crash with Daniil Kvyat while reversing the car, but didn’t convince the stewards, who imposed a three-place grid drop for him in Spain.

- In the end, it was a uneventful race in a venue that only has extreme races in its four years in the calendar. They are either dull like this Sunday’s race and the first one in 2016 or multi-crashes and classics like the other two. Maybe we do need drivers being less nice with each other.