Max Verstappen secured back-to-back race wins after a dominant performance at the Azerbaijan GP. The Red Bull driver led all 51 laps at the Baku City Circuit, finishing 14.609 sec clear of Mercedes’ George Russell. Carlos Sainz finished third, making his first podium appearance with Williams.
Championship favourite McLaren, though, delivered its worst performance of the season. Currently championship leader Oscar Piastri ended up in the barriers on the opening lap itself. This would have been the perfect opportunity for Lando Norris to significantly slash Piastri’s championship lead, but he could only manage P7.
- Verstappen wins, 14.608 sec ahead of Russell
- Sainz P3 for Williams
- Piastri crashes out, Norris P7
Piastri crashes out of Azerbaijan GP
Norris insists P7 not a missed opportunity
Azerbaijan ended up being a disastrous round for Piastri. After crashing in qualifying, the McLaren driver started from P9 on the grid. But a jump start, followed by engaging anti-stall dropped him down to P20. And things only got worse when he crashed into the barriers at Turn 5, bringing an end to his 34-race points-scoring streak.
This gave Norris the perfect chance to close the gap to Piastri in the standings. But the Brit experienced another slow pit stop and couldn’t find a way past Red Bull’s Yuki Tsunoda. He ended up finishing in the same P7 position that he started.
Despite this, Norris insisted that Azerbaijan wasn’t a missed opportunity. “I did everything I can. The opportunities were there; I maximise every single weekend like I can. It’s not a missed opportunity,” he said after the race. “Every race is an opportunity and today we just weren’t good enough and made too many mistakes yesterday [in qualifying].”
McLaren will also need to wait till Singapore to secure the constructors’ title. The team needed to outscore Ferrari by eight points to wrap up the title at Baku, but was unable to do so.
Verstappen takes dominant Azerbaijan GP victory
Russell, Sainz on podium at Baku
Verstappen returned to winning form last time out at the Italian GP, and he followed it up with another dominant win at Baku. He secured pole, the fastest lap and led every single lap en route to victory, handing him his sixth F1 grand slam – just two behind Jim Clark’s all-time record.
“The car was working really well on both of the compounds. We had clean air all of the time and then you could look after your tyres, and it was pretty straightforward,” said Verstappen. “Of course, it’s not easy around here. It was very windy today, so the car was always moving around a lot, but of course, I’m incredibly happy with this performance.”
Despite feeling under the weather, Russell scored a strong second place finish. Sainz finished P3, handing Williams its first podium finish since the 2017 Azerbaijan GP. He also becomes the second driver, after Alain Prost, to finish on the podium for McLaren, Ferrari and Williams.
Mercedes collected a strong points haul, with Kimi Antonelli in fourth place. Racing Bulls’ Liam Lawson finished P5, claiming his best F1 result to date in. Tsunoda was P6, scoring his best result for Red Bull. The Ferrari duo of Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc finished P8 and P9, respectively, followed by Racing Bulls’ Isack Hadjar.
2025 F1 championship standings
Norris gained six points at Baku, reducing Piastri’s championship lead to 25 points. Verstappen is now 69 points behind Piastri, in third place.
Next up on the 2025 F1 calendar is the Singapore GP on October 3-5.
Dipan Sur
