(Reuters) – Formula One statistics for Sunday’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix in Baku, the fourth round of the 23-race 2023 world championship:
Lap distance: 6.003 km. Total distance: 306.049km (51 laps)
2022 pole position: Charles Leclerc (Monaco) Ferrari one minute 41.359 seconds.
2022 winner: Max Verstappen (Netherlands) Red Bull
Race lap record: Leclerc, 1:43.009. Ferrari, 2019
Start time: 1100GMT (1500 local)
AZERBAIJAN
Azerbaijan will be the first of six sprint weekends this season with Saturday now a standalone race with its own qualifying. Baku has not hosted a sprint before.
The street circuit made its debut in 2016 as the European Grand Prix. The name changed in 2017, when the race was held in June. There was no race in 2020 due to COVID-19.
Baku has yet to see a repeat winner in six races and Mercedes and Red Bull are the only teams to have won there. Nobody has taken fastest lap more than once either.
Leclerc is the only driver to have been on pole twice.
Max Verstappen, Lewis Hamilton, Valtteri Bottas and Sergio Perez are the only current drivers to have won there.
Only two of the races have been won from pole (Nico Rosberg in 2016 and Bottas in 2019) and three from the front row. Daniel Ricciardo won for Red Bull from 10th on the grid in 2017 and Perez from sixth in 2021.
Mercedes and Ferrari have each taken three poles.
The safety car has been deployed in four of the six races. In total there have been two red flags, seven safety car periods and three virtual safety cars.
Perez won in 2021, was second last year and also finished third for Force India in 2016 and 2018.
The circuit, the fourth longest on the calendar, is 28 metres below sea level and overtaking is relatively easy.
RACE WINS
Hamilton has a record 103 career victories from 313 starts but his most recent was in Saudi Arabia in December 2021.
Red Bull’s double world champion Max Verstappen has 37 wins from 166 starts. One more by Verstappen would put him alongside Sebastian Vettel as the drivers with most wins for the team.
Red Bull have won 13 of the last 14 races and 20 of the last 25.
Aston Martin’s Alonso is on 32 wins, his last coming in his home Spanish Grand Prix in 2013 with Ferrari, from a record 357 starts.
POLE POSITION
Hamilton has a record 103 career poles.
Red Bull have been on pole in every race so far in 2023 and the last four in total.
PODIUM
Alonso is chasing his fourth podium finish in a row.
POINTS
Ferrari have scored just 26 points from three races, making 2023 so far their worst start to a season since 2009 when they scored no points in the first three races.
MILESTONE
Red Bull have won the first three races of a season for the first time. They have led 92% of the laps so far (151 of 165).
Aston Martin have had three successive podium finishes, a first for the Silverstone-based team in its many incarnations dating back to Jordan Grand Prix.
(Reporting by Alan Baldwin in London, editing by Toby Davis)
