Before the Formula 1 Azerbaijan Grand Prix was given its name, the Baku City Circuit hosted its maiden F1 race in 2016 under the name the F1 European Grand Prix.
The 2016 European GP marked the eighth round of the Formula 1 World Championship and remains the most recent race to carry the European GP title, as of 2025.
Seven rounds into the season, Nico Rosberg led the World Drivers’ Championship with 116 points, his four wins putting him nine points ahead of his Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton, who had two victories.
However, in a closely contested championship battle, Rosberg had not taken a race victory since the F1 Russian Grand Prix in round four of the 2016 season. Meanwhile, Hamilton claimed his victories in back-to-back races in Monaco and Canada as he arrived in Baku with hopes of a third straight race victory in the back of his mind.
With Mercedes winning six out of the opening seven races, they comfortably led the World Constructors’ Championship on 223 points, 76 points ahead of Ferrari in second and 93 points ahead of Red Bull in third.
Safety concerns
Despite the circuit passing its inspection by the FIA race director Charlie Whiting in May, the drivers were concerned over the lack of run-off area in some corners.
Another issue that the drivers brought up was the tightness of the pit lane and its location on the start-finish straight, one of the fastest points on the circuit. Race officials extended the white line at the pit lane entry before qualifying to give drivers more time to react to cars entering the pits.
In free practice, the race directors faced problems with the kerbs as some of them had become loose during the session. In response, officials replaced the kerbs at Turns 6 and 12 with painted markings on the track surface.
Hamilton’s hat-trick in practice
Across the two 90-minute sessions on Friday and the shorter 60-minute session on Saturday morning, Hamilton topped all three practice sessions with his best lap time of 1:44.223 coming in FP2.
The first red flag of the weekend came in FP1 when Daniel Ricciardo crashed his Red Bull at turn 15, causing him to lose one of his rear tyres.
Many drivers encountered issues in FP2, most notably championship leader Rosberg, who lost drive and was forced to stop on track. Both Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen in the Ferraris also struggled, as a problem with their energy recovery units limited their performance and left them far down the timing sheets.
The Finn’s mechanical difficulties continued in FP3 thanks to a loss of power. On the session’s conclusion, Sergio Perez in the Force India became another driver to crash at turn 15 which brought out the final red flag of the practice sessions.
Who failed to make the top ten shootout?
In Q1, Rosberg went fastest to top his first session of the weekend. On the back row, in 21st and 22nd, would be the two Renaults of Kevin Magnussen and Jolyon Palmer respectively due to their lack of power down the fast Baku straights. Marcus Ericsson (20th), Jenson Button (19th), Pascal Wehrlein (18th), and Rio Haryanto (17th) joined them in the bottom six.
Rosberg became the first driver to set a lap time of under 1:43.000 around the Baku City Circuit on his way to fastest in Q2. Hamilton did not only narrowly avoid elimination, he also damaged his race tyres with a lock up into turn seven. Romain Grosjean and Nico Hulkenberg were eliminated in 11th and 12th ahead of Carlos Sainz, Fernando Alonso, Esteban Gutierrez and Felipe Nasr.
The final part of qualifying was set up to be a showdown between the two Mercedes who were joined by the two Ferraris, the two Red Bulls, the two Williams, Perez in the Force India and Daniil Kvyat in the Toro Rosso.
Could Rosberg continue the momentum?
There was major drama on the opening runs of Q3 as Hamilton broke his suspension by clipping the inside barrier at turn ten, rendering him out of qualifying and red flagging the session. Meanwhile, Rosberg who had claimed provisional pole decided not to go out for a second run, leaving eight cars battling for a spot on the front row of the grid.
Perez was in second after the opening endeavours of Q3 and would stay there by the chequered flag, but a gearbox penalty would demote him to seventh on the grid.
In a bizarre turn of events, Ricciardo and Vettel set the exact same lap time on their final runs, however, the Australian set his lap time first and would qualify third with Vettel in fourth. Vettel’s teammate Raikkonen completed the top five in fifth.
The two Williams of Felipe Massa and Valtteri Bottas qualified in sixth and eighth respectively. They were split by Kvyat in seventh who outqualified Sainz for the first time during the 2016 season. Max Verstappen could only manage ninth for Red Bull with Hamilton classified behind him in tenth.
Due to Perez’s penalty, Ricciardo would join Rosberg on the front row for Sunday’s European GP whilst Hamilton was given permission to change his damaged front left tyre from his lock up into turn seven on safety grounds.
Lights out for F1 racing around Baku
Going into the race, many around the paddock expected a contest full of incidents and safety cars due to the closeness of the walls around the Baku City Circuit.
However, it was a relatively calm start to F1 racing in Baku as Rosberg retained the lead from pole position, still ahead of Ricciardo and Vettel within the top three. Perez, who had qualified second, jumped up to fifth off the start whilst Hamilton remained in tenth.
The only damaging incident on the opening lap was between Gutierrez and Hulkenberg with the Mexican breaking his front wing as he went into the back of Hulkenberg’s Force India.
Hamilton climbs the order
After a controlled lap one, Hamilton made his first overtake of the race on lap four when he passed Kvyat for ninth. The world champion was soon up to eighth as both he and Bottas jumped Verstappen when the Dutchman went wide at turn two.
Both Red Bulls made early pitstops as Verstappen pitted on lap six with Ricciardo changing his tyres on lap seven. Meanwhile, the Baku City Circuit saw its first retirement of the race as Kvyat suffered a hydraulics issue on lap eight.
Hamilton headed for the pits on lap 15 in an attempt to make some ground up the order. But when Perez pitted on lap 17, he emerged still ahead of the Mercedes.
On lap 18, Raikkonen made a move for position on Ricciardo down the start-finish straight to move into a provisional fourth place.
By lap 21, Hamilton was up to seventh as he followed Perez forward as they both got past Massa in the Williams. Massa’s teammate Bottas returned to the track in P9 after his first pit stop of the race.
The top two make their pit stops
Vettel in second was the first of the leading German pair to pit for new tyres as he headed for the pits at the end of lap 21 and emerged in third.
Despite his comfortable lead out in front, Rosberg responded a lap later as he made his pit stop on lap 22. His lead was so dominant that he emerged from the pit lane still in first place.
After Perez and Hamilton passed him, Ricciardo made his second pit stop of the European Grand Prix on lap 23. He came out from the pits in a lowly P13, but once a few more drivers in front of him had pitted, he was back up into the points by lap 27.
On lap 29, Raikkonen let his Ferrari teammate Vettel past as he was on much fresher tyres, but the gap to Rosberg in the lead was now a huge 18 seconds.
Reliability playing a factor
Hamilton, for whom a podium now seemed out of reach, started suffering with an issue with his car being stuck in a wrong engine mode. In line with the regulations, Mercedes were not allowed to help the Briton.
On lap 33, Sainz was suddenly out of the European GP with a suspension problem whilst Wehrlein would retire eleven laps later with brake failure.
By lap 44, Hamilton running in fifth had resolved the issue as he set the fastest lap of the race, but his problems had left him a long way back from the leading quartet.
Hamilton’s former teammate at McLaren Alonso became the fourth retirement from the maiden race around Baku as a gearbox issue saw him exit the European GP with just under seven laps to go.
Perez claims an excellent podium
Raikkonen in third received a five-second time penalty for crossing the pit lane entry line which left Perez behind with a chance to deliver a surprise podium for Force India.
By the final lap, Perez was comfortably within the five second margin but made the move on the Ferrari nonetheless to achieve an outstanding third place finish.
Perez’s P3 around Baku was his and Force India’s second podium in three races after the Mexican’s third place finish in Monaco two races earlier.
Rosberg extends his championship lead
Rosberg crossed the line at the end of lap 51 to win the 2016 European GP and become the first F1 race winner around the Baku City Circuit. He also completed his second career grand slam with pole position, leading every lap, fastest lap and the race win.
Over 16 seconds back, Vettel crossed the line in second for Ferrari to complete the most recent German one-two finish, as of 2025. Perez completed the top three with Force India’s fifth F1 podium finish.
Raikkonen was fourth ahead of Hamilton who was now three race wins down on Rosberg after the opening eight races of the season.
Bottas finished the race in sixth with the two Red Bulls of Ricciardo and Verstappen in seventh and eighth respectively. Hulkenberg in ninth and Massa in tenth completed the points scoring positions.
Rosberg’s fifth race win of the season extended his lead over world champion Hamilton in the Drivers’ Championship to 24 points going into the F1 Austrian Grand Prix.
The Mercedes debrief
Speaking after the 2016 European GP, Rosberg said: “I am so happy to win here in Baku. I really felt at one with the car in a way I’ve never felt before.
“We expected a Safety Car moment in this race, so I was hoping that it wouldn’t happen as that tends to mess up the race in general. But it was a pretty straightforward afternoon for me at the front.
“Sagol! – which means ‘thank you very much’ – to Baku for this great weekend. I look forward to Austria now!”
On his issues, Hamilton said: “I have no idea what happened out there today. I just had no power. I was in an engine mode which made it feel like I was driving without ERS for a long time.
“I was driving around looking at my screen trying to work out what was wrong – but I couldn’t see anything I’d done differently. It’s such a complicated, technical formula we have now and I don’t really see the benefit in preventing us from being able to fix these things out on track.
“It was just a real shame that I couldn’t race. If I’d been able to resolve it, I might have at least been able to be a part of the show and fight with the guys ahead of me.”
Toto Wolff said: “We all went into the race expecting lots of action – and while maybe the 51 laps didn’t deliver as many fireworks as we saw in other races this weekend, there was plenty going on in our garage!
“First of all, let’s talk about Nico. He did a fantastic job this entire weekend – a great pole position yesterday then a dominant race performance today.
“For Lewis, the first target was to survive lap one; he kept his nose clean and then started picking off the cars in front of him.
“He reported some electrical de-rates quite early on but it only became clear around his pit-stop that he was suffering from quite a big performance deficit with the car.
“We have had a warm welcome here in Baku and the organisers have delivered a fantastic and exciting new street circuit.”
