#BAKU F1 2018 DRIVERS#

The unusually long straights have an impact on car setup as well, with engineers generally favouring low downforce configurations to maximise top speed. It can also make for some spectacular action in the race, with cars sometimes going three-wide into the first corner. The slipstream effect here can raise speeds above 350 km/h: Alex Albon was clocked at 354 km/h in his Toro Rosso car across the start/finish line in the 2019 race.

#BAKU F1 2018 DRIVERS#

This is mostly thanks to the long pit straight, where drivers go flat-out for more than two kilometres. Baku, on the other hand, features some way further up the list of the fastest F1 circuits, with Charles Leclerc achieving an average speed of 209.795 km/h during the 2019 race: faster than the lap records at tracks such as the Circuit of the Americas, the Hungaroring and Yas Marina in Abu Dhabi. Monaco is the slowest circuit on the F1 calendar, with Lewis HamiltonвЂ™s new lap record in the 2021 race having an average speed of 164.769 km/h. But looked at as a whole, the two tracks offer considerably different demands. The famously narrow castle section of the Baku track can often be completely blocked during the race if one driver gets it wrong: rather like some places in Monaco. The two circuits do share some similar characteristics in places, in particular the tight confines. But rather like the popular saying about London buses, after a long wait we now have two such tracks back-to-back, with the return of the Monaco Grand Prix being followed directly by the comeback of Baku.

True city centre street circuits were missing entirely from the reshaped 2020 Formula 1 calendar.

Baku f1 2018