Nico Rosberg piloted his Mercedes to a convincing win at the first grand prix in Azerbaijan. The championship leader started from pole and stopped just once, passing from supersoft to soft tyres, without ever losing the lead. While some cars were forced to stop twice due to the higher than expected temperatures, Pirelli said that tyre degradation was lower than expected. The top six finishers all started on the P Zero Red supersoft, stopping once to change to the P Zero Yellow soft tyre between laps 8 and 21. These soft tyre stints therefore lasted up to 43 laps, the number achieved by Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen.