Going into this weekend the Azerbaijan Grand Prix looked like a race that had grown out of its reputation. Three consecutive quiet editions, the last of them producing a single retirement from twenty starters. Then Baku dropped seven cars in an afternoon and matched the worst attrition in its own history.
Nine races, six different winners, and a retirement rate that has now gone up, down and back up again. Here is what the numbers actually say.
The calm was real, and it lasted exactly three years
Across all nine runnings, 22.5 per cent of everyone who has started at Baku has failed to reach the flag, against roughly 16 per cent at every other race on the calendar over the same period. The reputation was earned.
The interesting part is how unevenly it is distributed. From 2017 to 2022 the rate was 27.0 per cent. From 2023 to 2025 it fell to 11.7 per cent, which was not just calmer than old Baku but calmer than the Formula 1 average. Three races in a row suggested the circuit had been solved. Then 2026 returned 31.8 per cent, seven cars from twenty two, the joint-highest count the race has ever produced.
So the honest reading is not that Baku stopped being dangerous. It is that Baku is volatile in a way that does not average out over three seasons. Crashes have always accounted for a disproportionate share of the damage here, close to seven per cent of all starts against around four per cent elsewhere, and the walls have not moved.
Every Azerbaijan Grand Prix, 2017 to 2026
Pole, winner, the grid slot the winner started from, and how many cars failed to finish.
| Year | Pole | Winner | Winner's grid | Retirements |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017 | Lewis Hamilton | Daniel Ricciardo | 10 | 7 |
| 2018 | Sebastian Vettel | Lewis Hamilton | 2 | 7 |
| 2019 | Valtteri Bottas | Valtteri Bottas | 1 | 4 |
| 2021 | Charles Leclerc | Sergio Perez | 6 | 4 |
| 2022 | Charles Leclerc | Max Verstappen | 3 | 5 |
| 2023 | Charles Leclerc | Sergio Perez | 3 | 2 |
| 2024 | Charles Leclerc | Oscar Piastri | 2 | 4 |
| 2025 | Max Verstappen | Max Verstappen | 1 | 1 |
| 2026 | George Russell | George Russell | 1 | 7 |
There was no Azerbaijan Grand Prix in 2020. Retirements count cars that did not reach the flag, so drivers classified a lap or more down are not included.
Pole position is finally starting to mean something here
For most of its life this was the circuit where the front row was worth very little. Pole converted into a win once in the first seven races. It has now converted three times in nine, and two of those three have come back to back: Max Verstappen in 2025 and George Russell in 2026, after Valtteri Bottas in 2019.
The counter-example is still the best story on the list. Charles Leclerc took pole here four years running from 2021 to 2024 and won none of them, collecting a fourth place, a retirement, a third and a second. Nobody has ever had that much track position at one circuit and got so little back.
The deep recoveries have dried up, though. Six drivers have reached the podium from outside the top five on the grid and every one of those came between 2017 and 2021. In 2026 the race produced chaos and a front-row winner at the same time, which is something Baku had never really managed before. Daniel Ricciardo winning from tenth in 2017 now looks like a relic of a different circuit.
