A dramatic weekend in Baku proved that Mercedes very much remains the team to ᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚbeat in the 2019 Formula 1 season.

As has been the case at each of the four rounds so far this year, Ferrari was billed as the pre-race favourites. But once again,൲ it was Mercedes that came out on top in Azerbaijan.

Valtteri Bottas converted a surprise front-row lock-out for Mercedes into its fourth straight one-two finish of🐎 2019, leaving the Ferrari team puzzled at how things have panned out the way they have.

The race may not have lived up to the same levels of past craziness, but ♊here are some of the key talking points to emerge from Baku…

No end to Ferrari struggles

The Azerbaijan Grand Prix was considered a must-win race for Ferrari in the context of this year’s world championship fight, with Mercedes already threatening to start running away with✤ both world titles unless the Scuderia could begin to halt its momentum.

Things were looking rosy for Ferrari throug🌜hout a truncated day of running on Friday and leading up to quali♚fying, with Charles Leclerc and Sebastian Vettel untouchable throughout practice.

Leclerc appeared destined for pole, only to make the 168🐻澳洲5最新开奖结果:biggest mistake of his F1♓ career to date as he slammed his SF90 in꧋to the Turn 8 barriers during Q2. “I am so stupid. I am so stupid,” the Monegasque lamented over team radio in the aftermath of his♏ error.

While Leclerc was to shoulder the blame for crasওhi♔ng, Ferrari appeared to put itself under unnecessary pressure in its attempts to start the race on Medium tyres and earn a theoretical strategical advantage on race day.

The move backfired as both drivers struggled for grip - Vettel had a near-miss at the same corner Leclerc crashed at moments later - with track conditions already well past their peak following a delay to the start of Q2, a result of Robert𝐆 Kubica’s hefty crash at the end🐈 of the first segment. 

Ironically, Leclerc’s incident would further disrupt qualifying and did not aid his teammate's chances of taking pole. Instead, it was another Mercedes front-row lockout in what acted as a 168澳洲5最新开奖结果:double whammy for its chief rival. Leclerc w🦹ould go on to finish a distant fifth in the race after Ferrari’s strategy gamble failed to reap the rewards it sought.

Ferrari pointed its lack of Q3 competitiveness to its struggles at getting Pirelli’s new-for-2019 tyres into the working window amid the cooler temper🦩atures, while Mercedes was seemingly able to adapt to the va🎃riables better.

Vettel, who qualified third and some 0.3s adrift without the benefit of a tow along Baku’s mammoth straights, would later cite Ferrari’s tyre issues as being one of the key areas it is losing🔥 out to Mercedes in, having been unable to keep tabs with the leaders on race day, particularly in the first stint.

The four-time world champion, who has lacked con🌼fidence to push his𝔍 car as he would like early on this season, compared extracting performance out of Ferrari’s SF90 challenger to solving a Rubik’s Cube.

“We have a lot of clever people in the team who could solve that puzzle in less than two minutes,” he said. “But in tꦑhis case the Rubik’s Cube is a bit bigger.”