Russell Wins Azerbaijan GP by 0.2s as McLaren’s Weekend Implodes

George Russell won the Azerbaijan Grand Prix by 0.196 seconds, it is the actual margin between a comfortable lights-to-flag victory and Max Verstappen snatching it away on the run to the line. Meanwhile, McLaren spent the afternoon proving that even a two-car team can somehow finish the day with zero cars.

Russell Does Almost Everything Right, Then Nearly Loses It Anyway

George Russell took pole, converted it instantly, and by lap six had stretched his advantage to three seconds. For long stretches of this race it looked like the most straightforward win of his season, the kind where you check out for twenty minutes and come back to find nothing has changed. Then two safety cars in short succession bunched the entire field back up, and Russell was suddenly fighting for a win he had already all but banked.

He survived the first restart. He survived the second. And then he survived Max Verstappen, who spent the closing laps throwing his Red Bull at every available gap and getting within two tenths on more than one occasion, at one point brushing the Turn 16 barriers in the process. Russell held his nerve and crossed the line 0.196 seconds clear, his third win of the season. The win trims his championship deficit to teammate Andrea Kimi Antonelli, though 66 points is still a canyon rather than a gap.

“These Red Bulls can be a problem. We want to try and keep them out of range.” – Tom Stallard, on the team radio to Oscar Piastri

That warning, issued early in the race, turned out to be prophetic for everyone except Russell. The Red Bulls were exactly the problem McLaren feared, they simply arrived at the front car too late to do anything about it.

Hadjar Delivers Red Bull’s First Double Podium Since 2024

While Verstappen was busy trying to out-brake Russell into the final corners, Isack Hadjar was quietly doing something rather remarkable in the other Red Bull. Finishing third, some 10.7 seconds back, Hadjar completed the marque’s first double podium since 2024, and he did it on a return weekend after missing three rounds through injury. Given he was strapped into the car ahead of this race as Liam Lawson’s loan spell ended, that is a serious statement.

For most of the race Hadjar was the quicker of the two Red Bulls, needling away at Verstappen’s rear wing and at one stage telling his team he had pace “just in case” it was needed. Red Bull, sensibly, told both drivers to keep it clean rather than let them scrap over what quickly became a shared cause. It paid off. Two cars finished P2 and P3, and suddenly Red Bull’s afternoon looks a good deal healthier than Ferrari’s or McLaren’s.

McLaren’s Weekend Ends in a Double DNF

If Red Bull’s story was a double podium, McLaren’s was its mirror image. Lando Norris had already had a scare earlier in the race with a lock-up into Turn 1 that dropped him down the order, but it was the second safety car period that finished him off entirely. Franco Colapinto locked up at the restart, collected teammate Pierre Gasly, and the pair speared into the side of Norris, ending his race on the spot. That incident is covered in full in our separate report on Colapinto taking out Gasly and Norris at the restart.

Oscar Piastri fared little better without any external help. Having run as high as second early on, he then made a mess of defending against Hadjar and locked up into Turn 1, dropping himself down to 15th and eventually finishing 14th. A team that arrived in Baku hoping to defend third in the constructors’ leaves with zero points from either car.

Antonelli’s Recovery Drive Limits the Damage

Antonelli’s weekend started badly and never fully recovered, though it could have been far worse. After crashing out of qualifying and starting 16th, the championship leader spent the race carving back through the field, at one stage stuck behind Oliver Bearman’s Haas before finally getting through on lap 17. By the end he had hauled himself up to fifth, passing Lewis Hamilton late on and finishing just four seconds off the podium.

It was not the kind of spectacular recovery drive Antonelli produced at Monza, but salvaging fifth from 16th on the grid is still a solid rescue job. It also means his championship lead, while eroded slightly by Russell’s win, remains a comfortable 66 points with eight races still to run this season.

Two Safety Cars, Several Ruined Races

The first safety car came out when Alexander Albon buried his Williams nose-first into the barrier at Turn 5. That triggered a scramble of pit stops, with most of the field diving in across the two rounds of stops it took to cycle everyone through. The second safety car followed almost immediately at the restart, caused by the Alpine collision that also swallowed Norris, plus a separate incident in which Lawson was spun by his own teammate Arvid Lindblad, prompting Lawson’s dry radio message about the joys of intra-team contact.

Valtteri Bottas added to the retirement list late on, beaching his Cadillac nose-first in the barrier at Turn 15, the same corner where Russell had earlier nibbled the wall himself while extending his lead. Aston Martin, meanwhile, continued a miserable run of form, with both Lance Stroll and Fernando Alonso retiring, a fourth double DNF in fifteen races for the team, as detailed in our report on Aston Martin’s latest double retirement. Only 15 cars were classified as finishers by the end.

Azerbaijan Grand Prix, Full Classification

Russell’s win takes him to 236 points, still second to Antonelli’s 302, but the momentum swing at the front is real even if the gap is not. Red Bull’s double podium cuts the gap to McLaren in the fight for third in the constructors’ standings to 43 points, while McLaren leaves Baku with nothing to show from either car. As reported earlier, Albon’s crash had briefly wiped out Russell’s lead altogether before the Briton restored order and eventually saw the race through.