\nBAKU, Azerbaijan, 12 Jun (AP) \u2014 Max Verstappen once again pounced when rival Charles Leclerc faltered in their race for the Formula One title.
\nVerstappen extended his F1 championship lead by winning the Azerbaijan Grand Prix on Sunday \u2014 his fifth victory of the season \u2014 following yet another Leclerc early retirement.
\nLeclerc started from pole, immediately lost the lead in the first corner to Sergio P\u00e9rez, Verstappen\u2019s Red Bull teammate, then used smart strategy to cycle his Ferrari back to the front. Leclerc regained the lead when he pitted under \u201cvirtual safety car\u201d speed restrictions while the two Red Bull cars stayed out.
\nLeclerc seemed poised to challenge for the win, but the Monaco driver\u2019s car started spewing smoke on lap 20 of 51 and he had to pull into the pits.
\nHis engine had failed \u2014 Leclerc\u2019s second retirement in three races.
\n\u201cIt hurts. We really need to look into that for it to not happen again. I don\u2019t really find the right words to describe, obviously it is very disappointing,\u201d Leclerc said.
\nVerstappen had passed P\u00e9rez shortly before Leclerc\u2019s failure and the reigning F1 champion cruised to his fifth win in seven races. Red Bull has won five consecutive races, and although Leclerc has two wins this year, his last victory was at Australia in early April and his last podium was at Miami in early May.
\n\u201cThat\u2019s racing. It happened to me, it happened to many people in the past. Unfortunately, it\u2019s happening to Charles,\u201d Verstappen said when asked if he had any sympathy for his rival\u2019s difficulties.
\n\u201cIf I would be in the same situation, I would also be disappointed. I think that\u2019s very normal. But it\u2019s about how you come out of it, you always look at how to improve things. That\u2019s what we did as well in the beginning of the season. And you learn from it. You don\u2019t like it, you\u2019re angry, but we turn it around.\u201d
\nVerstappen 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 Sunday when Verstappen told his team the car felt odd under braking, but he was able to make it to the finish.
\n\u201cYou can never make up what you lost last year but I think today we had incredible pace in the car, we could really look after the tires and chip away at it and pass for the lead,\u201d Verstappen said. \u201cBut then of course, also, maybe a tiny bit lucky with (Leclerc\u2019s) retirement. I think nevertheless our car was really quick today and could have closed that gap.\u201d
\nRed Bull went 1-2 in the race with P\u00e9rez finishing second, while Mercedes was third and fourth with George Russell and Lewis Hamilton.
\nP\u00e9rez, who won in Azerbaijan last year, said Red Bull made the \u201cright call\u201d not to let him fight Verstappen for the win and said he struggled with worn tires.
\nFerrari 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.
\nIt was the first time since the Italian Grand Prix in 2020 that the Ferrari team had to retire both cars.
\nThe slump in Ferrari reliability comes as Red Bull seems to have solved its own issues. Verstappen and P\u00e9rez both ground to a halt in the opening race of the season in Bahrain, Red Bull\u2019s first race since bringing engine production in-house for 2022.
\nVerstappen leads the standings by 21 points over P\u00e9rez, while Leclerc dropped to third and is 34 points behind Verstappen.
\nSeven-time champion Hamilton has complained of back pain from the Mercedes\u2019 tendency to bounce at high speed, and he was holding his lower back as he gingerly climbed out of the car Sunday after finishing fourth.
\n\u201cLet\u2019s definitely make some changes,\u201d he told team boss Toto Wolff.
\nPierre Gasly was fifth for AlphaTauri and Sebastian Vettel sixth for Alfa Romeo.
\nFernando Alonso of Alpine held off the two McLarens of Daniel Ricciardo and Lando Norris to finish seventh, and Alonso\u2019s teammate Esteban Ocon was 10th.<\/p>\n
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BAKU, Azerbaijan, 12 Jun (AP) \u2014 Max Verstappen once again pounced when rival Charles Leclerc faltered in their race for the Formula One title. Verstappen extended his F1 championship lead by winning the Azerbaijan Grand Prix on Sunday \u2014 his fifth victory of the season \u2014 following yet another Leclerc early retirement. Leclerc started from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-192918","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192918","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=192918"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192918\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=192918"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=192918"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=192918"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}