Valtteri Bottas has started eight Azerbaijan Grand Prix races and taken everything he owns at this circuit from just two of them.
Forty three points, one win, one pole and two podiums, all banked in 2017 and 2019. The other six visits produced nothing whatsoever.
Two afternoons that account for the entire record
The first one was immediate. He qualified second for his opening Baku race in 2017 and finished second, eighteen points on the board at the first attempt in a race that took most of the field apart.
2018 should have added to it and did not. He started third and a puncture turned the afternoon into fourteenth place and nothing at all.
2019 is the day the record is built on. Pole on Saturday, the win on Sunday and twenty five points, still the only Azerbaijan victory and the only Azerbaijan pole of his career.
Everything after that is a flat line. Tenth on the grid and twelfth at the flag in 2021, still with Mercedes. Then the Sauber years, badged Alfa Romeo and later under the team's own name: eleventh, eighteenth and sixteenth, from fifteenth, thirteenth and sixteenth on the grid.
Then 2026 with Cadillac, nineteenth on the grid and out on lap 49, his first retirement here in eight attempts. Five consecutive Baku weekends without a point, and no serious sign of one.
Valtteri Bottas'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 | 2 | P2 | 18 | Mercedes |
| 2018 | 3 | P14 | 0 | Mercedes |
| 2019 | 1 | P1 | 25 | Mercedes |
| 2021 | 10 | P12 | 0 | Mercedes |
| 2022 | 15 | P11 | 0 | Alfa Romeo |
| 2023 | 13 | P18 | 0 | Alfa Romeo |
| 2024 | 16 | P16 | 0 | Sauber |
| 2026 | 19 | P16 | 0 | Cadillac |
A winner who cannot get back to the points
For seven starts he finished every one, which at the Baku City Circuit is a genuine achievement in itself. That part of the record went in 2026, on an afternoon when seven cars failed to reach the flag and his was one of them.
The rest had already gone. He is one of a small group of drivers who have won this race, and he has now gone five visits without scoring a point at it. Baku was kind to him exactly twice, in 2017 and 2019, which at this circuit is twice more than most.
