Baku Qualifying Analysis: The fine margins in setups and slipstreams that decided the result

The Baku City Circuit is one of the more intriguing tracks that the drivers and their teams will visit and for the fans, the races usually serve up great entertainment.
But it is Friday’s Qualifying that caught our attention, with the slimmest of margins deciding the outcome.
Richard Verschoor took Pole Position ahead of Andrea Kimi Antonelli and Victor Martins in a tight affair. But there were other interesting notes from the session, such as the car setups and the slipstream effect.
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So, let us look at how Qualifying played out in Baku…
Baku is not a track where tyre degradation is high, so the drivers were able to do two push laps on the same Supersofts to start Qualifying.
After each run, Verschoor, Martins, and Antonelli had the three fastest times and as they came out of the pit lane for their final efforts, the battle was on.
But there was only time for just one flying lap on their new tyres after the session was Red Flagged following the Campos Racing pair of Isack Hadjar and Josep María Martí crashing into the barrier at Turn 1.
Between the three though, Antonelli started out the brightest. The PREMA Racing driver’s first sector of 40.524s was two-tenths faster than Martins and Verschoor, who completed it in 40.7s, with the former 0.041s quicker than the latter.
The middle sector is where Verschoor fought back. He crossed the marker faster than anybody else with 46.182s – 0.028s quicker than Martins.
As for Antonelli, the two-tenths advantage he had to Verschoor and Martins in the first sector was now almost gone as he completed the second in 46.314s.
This meant that as they headed to the final section of the lap, the Italian was 0.076s up on Martins, while Verschoor was 0.089s behind Antonelli.
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But the Dutchman completed the lap in 1:54.857, beating Antonelli to pole by 0.017s, while Martins ended up third nearly two and a half tenths back from Verschoor.
This could be because of their straight-line speed in the final sector. Verschoor was second fastest in the speed trap at 289.3km/h, while Antonelli was 10th at 288.0 km/h, with Martins down in 17th at 287.1km/h.
The speed trap though comes before the finish line where Verschoor was clocked at 312.5km/h, which was seventh fastest. Compared to Antonelli, who was at 310.9km/h, which was 17th while Martins was third from bottom at 310.7km/h.
All three drivers ran the Medium Downforce Rear wings that we know, but we don’t have much insight into their setups. What we do know is the power of the slipstream and Verschoor was right on the back of Luke Browning across the line which would have most definitely helped.
As for Antonelli, he got a tow from Ritomo Miyata, but he was not as close as Verschoor was to Browning, while Martins was even further behind the PREMA driver across the line.
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All three were in excellent form in Baku but Qualifying showed just how fine the margins can be in Formula 2.
Not only did the top three use the Medium Downforce Rear wings, but so did most of the grid. So, Kush Maini caught the eye in the pit lane when he chose the Low Downforce wing.
Baku is not just about straight-line speed as there are many low-speed corners. So, while the teams and the drivers would have deliberated over their setup, most chose to use the Medium Downforce rear wings to make sure they had a car that was strong throughout the lap.
Maini though went bold, and it largely paid off as he qualified fifth ahead of his Invicta Racing teammate Gabriel Bortoleto, in sixth.
We can see that he struggled in the first sector as, while it does have a long DRS straight, it also has some low-speed corners. His 41.018s was 0.494s slower than Antonelli’s leading time.
He was 0.160s slower than Verschoor in the second sector, which is also made up of some low-speed corners, but he was fastest in the final section, which is high speed corners and a long DRS straight.
Maini’s 27.814s in the third sector was over a tenth faster than anybody else helped by the fact that he was captured at the speed trap going at 295.4km/h – 6.1km/h quicker than anybody else.
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Across the line, he was at 321.0km/h – 6.4km/h faster than the rest of the field. He ended up 0.317s off pole in P5 with a bold call that in some ways paid off.
At a street circuit, especially one like Baku where the walls are in close, it is not uncommon to have these Red Flags in Qualifying.
Usually when this happens, the teams try to send their drivers out near the front of the queue, reducing the chances of another stoppage slowing their progress and giving them the chance to complete a clean lap.
That is what Van Amersfoort Racing did for Enzo Fittipaldi and Rafael Villagómez, but when the former came out at the front of the queue, he questioned it only to be told by his engineer that they had to or else they would be at risk.
With no one to punch a hole in the air ahead of him, Fittipaldi did not improve on his fastest time and having been in top 10 contention dropped P16. He was one of the slowest drivers in the speed trap and across the line.
Villagómez though benefitted from being behind the Brazilian and improved to P13 although he was pushed down to P20 when the rest of the field completed their laps.
The rookie was in fact 11th-fastest in the speed trap and sixth quickest across the line.
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What could have also impacted their times was that they had already completed personal best times in the first sector on their new Supersofts before the Red Flags came out.
So, it is possible that using those tyres cost them as did the lack of a tow for Fittipaldi. In hindsight it is easy to argue against VAR’s decision but at the time it was probably the right call as the risks of a Yellow or Red Flag at Baku are quite high.
It didn’t pay off this time but maybe in the future it might.