Shwartzman quickl﷽y established a lead over Jehan Daruvala, but was p𓆉egged back by the early Safety Car. 

Felipe🎀 Drugovich hit the back of Oscar Piastri♈, forcing the Prema into Liam Lawson.

This meant both Piastri and Lawson were forced t🌟o retire on the opening lap, while Drugovich wasꦯ handed a 10-second time penalty for his actions.

Once the race got back underway, Shwartzman nailed the restart and quickly broke the one-second window to Daruvala, meaning he wouldn’t be put under any pressure down the st𓄧art-🐎finish straight. 

As Daruvala struggled for pace, 🍨it allowed Carlin teammate Dan Ticktum to make his way up to second.

Startiℱng from sixth, Ticktum seemed to be the last of the late brakers as he overtook Ralph Boschung, Marcus Armstrong and Guanyu Zhou in quick succession.

💛Ticktum didn’t have the pace to close the gap to Shwartzman, who ran out a comfortable winner by over five seconds.

Guanyu Zhou completed the podium having overtaken D🐭aruvala on🔜 Lap 9 into Turn 1. 

Daruvala managed to maintai♕n fourth despite struggling for pace, while Théo Pourchaire recovered from a difficult Safety Car restart to continue his impressive run of points finishes with fifth ahead of Boschung.

Arܫmstrong dropped to seventh 🗹in the closing laps, losing out to Pourchaire and then Boschung on Lap 20.

Juri Vips couldn’t get past♏ Armstrong to the line as he finished eighth.

Drugovic♈h finished ninth on track but his penalty dropped him to 14th meaning David Beckmann and Bent Viscaal completed the t🔜op ten.

Click here for the full race result🍸s from the first𒁏 Baku sprint race.