Everything we learned on day one at F1's Azerbaijan GP

Two stories - one that's been announced, and another that's developing - have helped fill in a couple more gaps in the 2027 Formula 1 driver market ahead of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix. Throw in drivers' reactions to the recently announced Monaco sprint race, the arrival of an unexpected tech upgrade, and engine-penalty updates at Mercedes and Ferrari, and it's been a surprisingly newsworthy Wednesday in the F1 paddock. Here's what we've learned so far from this early-starting Baku weekend. ## McLaren's bringing revised sidepods McLaren is continuing its aggressive upgrade push in Baku, with dramatically revised sidepods as part of the package it will evaluate during FP1. This follows the major aerodynamic upgrade introduced across the Hungarian and Dutch GP weekends either side of the August break and the first on-track appearance of the revised H-wing at Monza, a part that will reappear this weekend having been taken off the car for the Madring two weeks ago.

The sidepods have been reshaped to have a very different downward ramp shape as they travel rearwards, which is closer to the Ferrari and Mercedes designs. There's also a revised, more vertical inlet shape similar to the Audi design. - Edd Straw ## No engine penalty yet for Russell... Baku's long straights mean it is an attractive place for drivers to take engine change penalties, which is why that option remains on the radar for Ferrari and Charles Leclerc. But over at Mercedes, the manufacturer and its driver George Russell have committed to waiting a bit longer to add the final power unit to the pool.

As has been hinted at before, the timing of Russell's final power unit change is planned to coincide with an ADUO (Additional Development and Upgrade Opportunities) step that Mercedes will introduce at some point soon. The United States GP at Austin in late-October would be a logical place for it. From Russell's perspective, there is no point taking a grid drop now only to then face another one a few races down the road when the better parts come along. There has been speculation that the Mercedes ADUO upgrade will revolve around the turbo, something that Russell himself all but confirmed in Baku when he said he was having to wait because he had to take an extra one in Hungary after a failure in qualifying.

"It's all a bit complicated," he said. "But long story short, if I took one now, I would have had to have taken another one." - Jon Noble ## ...and Hamilton's engine might've 'gained a race' We are at that stage of the season where most F1 teams are furiously trying to work out if their drivers have enough miles left in their power units to get to the end without the need for a grid drop penalty. For some (such as Russell) that fate is unavoidable, so it is a matter of picking the best time to do it. Lewis Hamilton had been in a similar situation over recent weeks as it looked like he would not make it through to the end of the campaign without a swap.

But ahead of the Azerbaijan GP, Hamilton revealed that there was a silver lining to the cloud of his early Spanish GP retirement. The DNF reduced the mileage on his latest power unit enough to make it possible to now get through to the end of the campaign with what he has. "I 'gained' a race, so I think it should be OK," he said in Baku. However, he has suggested that a tactical call could come into play if Ferrari concludes that the extra performance a fresh engine gives outweighs the downside of any grid drop.

"Naturally with engines, from new to when they've done several races, there is a difference in performance, so we will take that decision later on in the year," he said. Team-mate Leclerc is one of those who will need a fresh one at some point. He is weighing up when best to take a penalty, and it's not impossible he elects to do so in Baku this weekend. One good bit of news for him, though, is that his Monza engine, of the latest ADUO 2 spec, is now back in his pool and available to be used. - JN ## Ocon and Haas set for split As reported by The Race's Scott Mitchell-Malm, Esteban Ocon is now expected to be let go by Haas at the end of the year without a renewal offer - leaving him with limited options to continue an F1 career that has already spanned nearly 200 starts.

While the seat Ocon currently occupies has not been filled officially, The Race understands Ferrari's Formula 2 title-contending junior Rafael Camara is in pole position - and it doesn't appear like Ocon is even second choice. Ocon certainly spoke on Wednesday like a driver who knows there is no joint future with his current team, describing himself as a "free agent" and repeatedly deflecting questions about a continued employment at Haas. And he clearly feels hard done by, given Haas's well-documented issues in the matter of its two cars producing consistent, equal load weekend to weekend. "My performance hasn't been an issue this year.

I've performed every time I had the [performing] car," he said. - Valentin Khorounzhiy ## Red Bull's rookie can't argue with Hadjar deal In recent years, a rookie season as healthy as the one Arvid Lindblad has enjoyed in Red Bull's second team has usually meant an immediate graduation to the main team - in large part because Max Verstappen has been demolishing anyone matching up against him as a team-mate. But Lindblad will have to wait until 2028 at the earliest to get a promotion. And while he reckons Isack Hadjar's extension at the main team came "a little bit earlier than normal", he says he can't question the decision. "Full credit to Isack, he's probably been one of the first drivers in the last eight years that has been performing well as the second driver in Red Bull - so also fair play to him that he gets that comfort of getting announced a bit earlier," Lindblad acknowledged.

"For myself, it wasn't really something I was thinking about; I'm very focused on myself, I know my own path and trajectory that I'm on. I'm very happy where I am at the moment." Racing Bulls team-mate Liam Lawson indicated that the prospect of taking Hadjar's seat was also never really a topic for him - even after his impressive stand-in stint at Red Bull in recent races - and that the new Hadjar deal is "not surprising". - VK ## Williams is now underweight Williams has been overweight all year, up to now. Crucially, Alex Albon has confirmed that not only is the car on the minimum weight limit of 768kg thanks to the introduction of two brand-new chassis, but it is in reality below that. This allows Williams to carry ballast, which is useful for fine-tuning the weight distribution.

"We've been carrying a substantial weight penalty this year so far," said Albon. "Going into this weekend, we've got ballast on the car, so you could imagine there's a big [performance] swing in many ways. The weight itself is a big thing and weight is a guarantee of laptime, so that's why we know it will be a good step regardless of how the aero side performs - but it's a good upgrade." At the start of the season, the Williams FW48 was understood to be around 28kg over the weight limit. While that was whittled away at in the ensuing races, it required the new chassis to achieve the majority of the weight reduction.

That, combined with the aerodynamic upgrades, is expected to give a significant performance bump to the Williams, which has been the ninth-fastest car on average this season but lately slipped to 10th behind the improved Aston Martin-Honda. However, as Albon has pointed out, this is an upgrade that "in any other year would have been a massive one" but that isn't as big a relative stride as it normally would be given the overall rate of development across the grid. Nonetheless, he says "it's certainly going to get us back in contention with that group" - even if team-mate Carlos Sainz offered the downbeat verdict that "even with all the upgrades, we're still going to struggle to get out of Q1 and we're going to struggle to be at the top end of Q2". Williams isn't