2017 Race of the Year: Azerbaijan Grand Prix

Friday, 15 December 2017 at 23:12

Our 2017 Azerbaijan Grand Prix report began like this: Where to begin? Let’s start at the end…

Red Bull driver Daniel Ricciardo defied the odds to win an incident-packed and chaotic Azerbaijan Grand Prix ahead of Valtteri Bottas stormed from last place in the Mercedes, thanks to a first turn collision, to steal second place on the finish line from 18 year old Lance Stroll who claimed third place for Williams, on a day the boy became a man and some of the biggest names in Formula 1 tripped up.

Indeed it was a cracker of a race with action throughout the field for the duration of the race:

Ricciardo's storming drive after crashing out 24 hours earlier;
Kimi Raikkonen and Valtteri Bottas coming together at the start, forcing the Mercedes driver to pit for a new front wing and then delivered a scorching drive to eventually claim second place by the tiniest of margins;
the (almost forgotten) clash between Force India drivers Sergio Perez and Esteban Ocon;
and of course last but by no means least, the 'road rage' incident in which Sebastian Vettel swerved into Lewis Hamilton - many believing the incident was the psychological turning point of the title battle...

And a whole lot more happened on that Sunday re-live the race here>>>

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2017 Awards Notes: The Grand Prix 247 Awards were determined by reader polls which began on 2 December and ran until 8 December. An average of 3000 votes were cast per category, around 42,000 votes were received in total. Thank you to those who participated.