AZERBAIJAN GRAND PRIX: Debuting last year as the European grand prix, this time around the Azerbaijani grand prix features under its own name.

A claustrophobic street track designed by the famous Hermann Tilke, its layout places great demand on the power unit of participating cars. Featuring one of the longest straights in the formula 1 calendar, teams will be looking to streamline their cars’ aerodynamics to make the most out of this “point and squirt” track. Illustrating the tracks high speed nature, last year Valterri Bottas (then in a Williams) unofficially broke the all time top speed record during qualifying with a whopping 378 kph.

Given that, where will the teams line up this year? Mercedes are certainly the team with the biggest question mark over their head. After a woeful Monaco, the team reportedly worked 24/7 up until the Canadian grand prix to get on top of their tyre heating issues. Their dedication paid off, rewarding them with the teams first 1/2 this year, though largely aided by Sebastian Vettel losing a chunk of his front wing at the first corner. The Baku circuit is a somewhat different beast to Canada however, so more set up inspiration will be required of the team to produce the same performance.

Ferrari are well positioned to mop up if Mercedes do indeed have trouble. The SF70H has proven to be capable of adapting very well to a variety of tracks so it shouldn’t be as big an ask to extract the most out of the car. It is suspected that the Mercedes power unit has a slight edge over the Ferrari, but if that can’t be unlocked by the works team, that could be moot.

Red Bull are expected to continue to struggle to be competitive at the front, their Renault engine just being too big a deficit on tracks such as this one. Mercedes powered midfield teams will be looking forward to this period of the calendar. Expect to see Force India continue their sensational form, and for a chasing Williams to show well if they can avoid the bad luck they have had so far this season. Toro Rosso and Renault have the same power deficit problems as Red Bull and McLaren Honda are… well, Honda powered!

Typically by this point in the season, one team or another is steaming ahead in the constructors and beginning to put themselves out of reach. With just 7 points in the difference at the top this year, every race is vital for Mercedes and Ferrari, placing all the more pressure on their respective drivers. Though there has only been one race held here, Vettel certainly seemed to get into his groove much more quickly than Hamilton, who ended up with a broken suspension through the thrilling mid lap chicane. If Hamilton doesn’t start nailing those apexes, expect the initiative to swing back to Ferrari this weekend.

Outright:

Although it is probably fair to say Lewis Hamilton is slightly favoured to win the race, a price of 1.92 is not incredibly attractive value. Compared that to a far better price of 2.86 on Vettel who is, at worst, very marginally less likely to win, the Ferrari man is a much better investment at the moment.

Specials:

McLaren were not only one lap away from bringing both of their cars over the finish line for the first time in Canada, they were also a lap away from scoring their first points of the season. As such, our “McHonda reliability meal” is more likely than ever and makes a return. McLaren also feature in our “Proving a point” market in which you can back Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll to bag points in Baku. “Mercedes dominance” is a new market this week in which you can back all the Mercedes powered cars to finish in the points and finally, “Pretty in Pink” lets you back the Force India squad to achieve a double top 6 finish, a feat they have impressively completed the last two races in a row.


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