F1 Driving Lessons: Stars forced to practice basic skill at Azerbaijan Grand Prix

Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen with L plates on — Photo: © IMAGO

Azerbaijan Grand Prix

The basic driving skill F1 stars are forced to practice at Azerbaijan Grand Prix

A very basic skill is being put to good use at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix

Sam Cook Digital Journalist

Sports Journalist who has been covering motorsport since 2023

Friday 19 September 2025 22:42

F1 drivers are having to practice a basic skill that most of us normal road users learned during driving lessons ahead of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.

The Baku City Circuit is a narrow, winding street circuit that has been the location for many dramatic moments since it first entered the F1 calendar back in 2016.

Max Verstappen's tyre blow out in 2021, Verstappen and Daniel Ricciardo's crash in 2018, and a Lewis Hamilton error that handed Sergio Perez victory during Hamilton and Verstappen's fierce title battle in 2021 are just some of the moments the track has witnessed.

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But the very nature of the circuit also means that drivers often have minor misdemeanours that force them to head off into one of the track's many escape roads.

That could be seen on Friday during FP2, when Lewis Hamilton suffered a small error and locked up his tyres, heading straight for the escape road rather than slamming into the barriers that were beckoning him in.

Sky Sports F1 pundits Karun Chandhok and Bernie Collins suggested that these minor incidents make it vital for drivers to know how to access their reverse gear during the Azerbaijan GP weekend, and how it may be harder than most fans would imagine.

Chandhok said: "It sounds weird to say, but the drivers need to remember how to get into reverse gear."

Former Aston Martin strategist Collins backed up his sentiment, and gave insight into how drivers go about relearning that very basic skill: "Yeah exactly, and it’s not the easiest gear to engage, the other gears you spend a lot of time in gearbox design making sure the engagement’s nice and quick, that it doesn’t clash in any way, that there’s no possible damage to the gears," she revealed.

"Reverse is a bit more robust, but it’s a bit more clunky to engage, and that’s why they have to practice it going into the weekend and remember what procedure they need to do, every car will have a slightly different procedure of how to engage it but we go through that with each driver in advance of the weekend."

Several other drivers were also seen needing to hit the reverse gear on Friday, including Haas rookie Ollie Bearman.

Azerbaijan sees resumption of championship battle

McLaren can win the constructors' championship this weekend, and they need to outscore Ferrari by nine points in order to do just that.

It would be their second consecutive teams' title, but their drivers are also involved in a tightly-contested drivers' championship fight, and they head to a circuit that holds bad memories for Lando Norris.

Oscar Piastri holds a hefty lead over Norris, but he has not been involved in a championship battle in the latter stages of a season before, while Norris has.

Norris has the devastating scars of 2024 to show for it, where a number of mistakes in the closing events of the season let Max Verstappen and Red Bull off the hook. One of those came at the 2024 Azerbaijan GP, where the Brit was dumped out in Q1, starting the race all the way down in 17th.

While he did recover in the race to finish fourth, Norris will be hoping to avoid a similar fate during qualifying this weekend, with Piastri looking to further extend his advantage over his team-mate at the Baku City Circuit.

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Lewis Hamilton Azerbaijan Grand Prix Karun Chandhok Bernie Collins