Baku was a good weekend. Not just the result – though a first double-points finish of 2019 is nice – but the whole weekend. Somewhere like Baku, the value of simply having the drivers on track in practice with a car that’s behaving simply cannot be over-rated: mileage creates confidence; confidence delivers speed. The MCL34 ran without problems, the team made good decisions, and the crews did everything flawlessly. Team Manager Paul James was fulsome in his praise at the flag. Then demanded everyone do better next time – but was of course smiling when he said it.

The pit-crew were on top form with the fastest stop for Carlos and the second fastest for Lando. They also had the second slowest stop when Lando came in late-race – but this probably produced more of a buzz. Arriving with cold tyres and brakes during the VSC, Lando went long and hit the jack. The crew were lightening quick in their reactions and, in the end, it only cost Lando about two seconds. He was suitably mortified on the radio afterwards – but everyone in the garage was busy laughing.

Perched on the Caspian seashore, the district through which the Baku City Circuit is threaded is a lovely place to unwind after the track closes – but many of the team have never seen it for the simple reason we have the rare luxury of staying in the paddock – or as good as. The paddock is built in the shore-fronting Freedom Square, at one end of which is the Baku Hilton. A few of the more strategy-oriented individuals calculated a 4m50s transit time from bedroom to garage – given optimum lift availability.

Possibly the strangest experience in an F1 garage is a red flag stoppage in qualifying. There’s a few moments of intense activity, but once the car’s been recovered, fuelled and has tyres fitted… nothing happens. An F1 garage is never idle, there’s always something to do – except now. Without knowing how long the stoppage is going to be, nothing can be done to the car other than give it a really good polish. Once that’s done, there’s only tea, snacks and brake fan air hockey…

From the outside, the 2019 Azerbaijan Grand Prix may not have been a thriller, but there was quite a bit of tension towards the end of the race after Lando’s charge was halted when he tagged a wall. He bought the car home safely and without great drama – but for a short period things went a bit quiet in the garage…

Carlos didn’t have much luck in the opening three races: he had a mechanical DNF in Australia; went off in Bahrain after clashing with Verstappen, and was nerfed by Kvyat in China. Things didn’t look awesome in Baku after his qualifying was compromised by a yellow flag but Carlos has been overwhelming optimistic through it all – because the pace has always been in the car. “I think points should be on the table pretty much at every race,” he said directly after the race.

Short of a grand prix taking place in a gale, nowhere else on the F1 calendar will you hear quite so much discussion of wind direction and wind speed as you do in Baku. Jutting out on a peninsula in the Caspian Sea, it is always very windy – but that’s magnified by the construction of the track, with the wind funnelled through the canyon-like streets. What made it worse was the gusting nature of the wind: fine if it’s the same every lap, very difficult when it can suddenly disappear.