Baku Team Radio: What Eight Years of Messages Show
Guides
Baku's reputation is chaos. Five races of team radio disagree.
The Azerbaijan Grand Prix averages 89 broadcast radio messages a race against 112 across every circuit, 14th of 16. The chaos is real, but it sits almost entirely in two seasons.
Baku is supposed to be the circuit where everything goes wrong. Our archive says it is quieter than average.
Across the Azerbaijan Grands Prix we hold from the fully archived seasons, 2018 to 2024, the broadcast carried 89 radio messages a race. The average across every circuit over those same seasons is 112. That puts Baku 14th of the 16 venues with four or more complete races on record, below Austin (131), Monaco and Bahrain (117 each).
The reputation is not wrong, though. It is just concentrated. Two races produced almost all of it, and one of them produced the strangest four minutes of radio in the archive.
, with the original audio and a transcript that colours itself by who is speaking.
The count, race by race
Year
Messages broadcast
What happened
2018
70
Bottas punctured while leading with two laps left, Hamilton won
2019
120
The busiest Baku on record, and a quiet race
2021
98
Two tyre failures, a red flag, a two-lap restart
2023
95
First Baku sprint weekend
2024
62
Piastri beat Leclerc, Perez and Sainz crashed with a lap to go
2025
21
Still being added to the archive, not a complete count
Messages broadcast during each race, from our archive. 2020 had no race at Baku, 2022 is missing from the archive, and the 2025 and 2026 seasons are still being ingested so their figures are incomplete.
One caveat that matters for every number here: the archive holds what Formula 1 chose to broadcast, not everything said on the radio. A quiet year in this table means the broadcast played less, which usually tracks the drama but is not the same as measuring it.
2021: the race that broke twice
On lap 31, Lance Stroll's left rear tyre exploded on the main straight. Safety car, debris, restart.
Then on lap 46, leading comfortably, Max Verstappen's left rear did exactly the same thing at over 300 km/h. He hit the wall hard enough to bring out a red flag on lap 48, with two laps left.
Lewis Hamilton's first question was not about the race.
"Is he okay?" "Yeah, he's fine."
The race restarted with two laps to run, Hamilton alongside Sergio Perez on the front row. Into Turn 1 he locked up, ran straight on down the escape road, and finished 15th with no points from second on the grid.
"Oh, I'm so sorry guys." "Yeah, don't sweat it Lewis, don't sweat it."
Perez won from sixth on the grid, in the car whose teammate had just crashed out of the lead.
"Thank you guys. And I'm very sorry for Max."
Sebastian Vettel finished second from 11th. Pierre Gasly took third from fourth, which at the time was AlphaTauri's second ever podium.
"Guys, I don't know how I did that."
Ninety-eight messages, and the four that matter are all about something going wrong for somebody else.
2024: the last lap nobody saw coming
Oscar Piastri won from second, holding off Charles Leclerc, who had taken pole. George Russell finished third. Lando Norris came fourth from 15th on the grid.
The race is remembered for what happened behind them. Perez and Carlos Sainz collided on lap 50 of 51, both out, wreckage across the track in low evening sun. Russell drove through it.
"It was crazy with that crash and the sun right in my eyes. I literally could not see a thing. Glad everyone's okay."
The other message worth hearing that day is Nico Hulkenberg's, after his own race ended.
"You don't have to be sorry, mate. I'm sorry. I let you guys down."
Sixty-two messages, which is well below the average race. Baku does not need volume to produce a finish like that.
The strangest one is not about racing at all
In 2021, midway through the race, Perez reported that his drinks system was leaking inside the car. The solution offered by his engineer has stayed with us.
"Try blowing into your drinks tube. See if that stops the leak."
He won the race about two hours later.
What it means for Saturday
The 2026 Azerbaijan Grand Prix runs on Saturday 26 September at 15:00 local time, moved off Sunday because of Azerbaijan's Remembrance Day. Our forecast for pole, and how the weekend is structured, is in the Baku 2026 race preview, and the circuit itself is measured corner by corner in the Baku City Circuit explained.
What the archive suggests: do not expect constant noise. Expect a quiet race that turns on one moment, usually involving a wall, and usually late.
Every message from the most recent Baku race is in our Azerbaijan Grand Prix 2025 radio archive, and the 2026 messages will land there as they are broadcast during the weekend.
Frequently asked questions
How many radio messages does a Formula 1 race produce?
In our archive, across the fully ingested seasons of 2018 to 2024, an average race carries about 112 broadcast messages. Baku averages 89. The 2025 and 2026 seasons are still being added to the archive, so their counts are lower and are not comparable yet.
Which Azerbaijan Grand Prix had the most team radio?
2019, with 120 messages broadcast during the race. The 2021 race, which had two tyre failures and a red flag, produced 98. Those are complete seasons; 2025 and 2026 are still being added.
What did Lewis Hamilton say after the 2021 Baku restart?
"Oh, I'm so sorry guys," after locking up at Turn 1 on the two-lap restart while running second. He finished 15th and scored no points.
Why is 2022 missing from the Baku radio archive?
The 2022 season is absent from our source data entirely, not just Baku. Everything from 2018 to 2021 and 2023 onwards is there.
When is the 2026 Azerbaijan Grand Prix?
Saturday 26 September 2026 at 15:00 local time in Baku, a day earlier than usual because of Remembrance Day on 27 September.
Sources
Message counts, quotes and audio: our own team radio archive, 2018 to 2025
Results, grid positions, safety cars, red flags and retirement laps: official Formula 1 timing via FastF1
Hear the next one live
Baku's defining moments arrive without warning and are usually explained on the radio before the broadcast catches up.
The Formula Dream app plays live driver radio as it is broadcast, with the transcript running beside the audio, a live timing Dashboard (currently in beta) showing gaps, tyre age and flags, and every FIA document of the weekend as the stewards publish it.
Free, no subscription, independent. Not affiliated with Formula 1.
Nineteen Chinese Grands Prix have been held in Shanghai since 2004. Lewis Hamilton won six, pole won twelve, and in 2026 Kimi Antonelli took the first win of his career there, at 19, with Hamilton on the podium for Ferrari for the first time. Every winner, grid slot and safety car, measured.
Pierre GaslyAlphaTauri · Azerbaijan Grand Prix 2021 · Race · 15:30:16 local
DriverGuys, I don't know how I did that. Oh,
Engineerwhat a
Driverdrive! Incredible. What
Engineera
Driverdrive, mate. What a drive. Pick up, please. Wow. No idea how I've done that. Incredible, guys. I'm sorry for you. Sorry for the .
EngineerIt's
Driverbeen an incredible weekend from the start to the finish, so I'm really pleased. I'm really pleased for all of you. Fantastic work. Wow.
EngineerYeah, that was an amazing job, that last lap. Absolutely incredible. Fantastic. You've been amazing all weekend. Really, really good job. Thank you. Fully deserved.
DriverThanks a lot. Unbelievable. Thanks a lot to everyone, guys. Unbelievable. Great job. You deserve it. Yeah, I really had to fight hard for that one.
