Esteban Ocon scored eight points at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix in 2017, the first time he raced there. It then took him until 2026 to score more than a single point at the circuit again.
Eight starts, 13 points, two retirements and a best finish of sixth that is now nine years old. Very few records on the grid peak this early and then flatten out this completely.
One good afternoon, then a long slide down the grid
The 2017 race was a Force India at its best: seventh on the grid, sixth at the flag, on a day when the order in front of him came apart. He qualified seventh again in 2018 and was out on the first lap in a collision.
The Alpine years brought a turbo failure in 2021 and then the only other points of his Baku career: tenth place and a single point in 2022, from thirteenth on the grid.
What happened next was a qualifying story more than a racing one. He started 2023, 2024 and 2025 from nineteenth, twentieth and twentieth, and finished fifteenth, fifteenth and fourteenth. At a circuit with one real overtaking spot, starting on the last two rows sets the ceiling before the lights go out. Then 2026 proved the point from the other direction: thirteenth on the grid for Haas, eighth at the flag, four points and his best result here since that first year.
Esteban Ocon's Azerbaijan GP record year by year
Every Azerbaijan Grand Prix start, with the grid slot it came from and what it was worth.
| Season | Grid | Finish | Points | Team |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017 | 7 | P6 | 8 | Force India |
| 2018 | 7 | P19 | 0 | Force India |
| 2021 | 12 | P20 | 0 | Alpine |
| 2022 | 13 | P10 | 1 | Alpine |
| 2023 | 19 | P15 | 0 | Alpine |
| 2024 | 20 | P15 | 0 | Alpine |
| 2025 | 20 | P14 | 0 | Haas |
| 2026 | 13 | P8 | 4 | Haas |
Give him a grid slot and the rest follows
No win, no podium, no pole and no fastest lap. The two times he has started inside the top ten here he came away with points on one of them and was taken out on the other. Of the six times he has started outside it, he has now scored twice, and both of those came from thirteenth on the grid.
2026 made the case neatly. A thirteenth-place grid slot in the VF-26 was worth four points, more than his previous five Baku weekends put together, and Haas got both cars into the top nine on a day when seven others did not finish.
