Yesterday at 14:39
Max Verstappen cruised to victory in an Azerbaijan Grand Prix in
which Oscar Piastri crashed out to open the drivers' title door for
McLaren team-mate Lando Norris, and potentially the four-time F1
champion. After crashing out in qualifying on Saturday, Piastri's
weekend took another horrific twist when he did the same in the
race at Turn 3 on the opening lap after dropping to the back of the
field following a jump start off the line. For Verstappen, it was
another consummate lights-to-flag performance after his triumph in
Italy a fortnight ago, scoring back-to-back wins for the first time
in 15 months, and enabling him to close the championship gap on
Piastri to 69 points with 199 available. As for Norris, he was
unable to take as big an advantage as he would have liked, with a
slow pit stop proving a handicap en route to seventh position,
leaving him 25 points behind Piastri. On a day when McLaren could
have clinched back-to-back constructors' titles for the first time
in 34 years, it will now have to wait for the next race in a
fortnight in Singapore. George Russell overcame illness coming into
the weekend to finish runner-up in his Mercedes, with a jubilant
Carlos Sainz third in his Williams for his first podium since his
final race with Ferrari in Abu Dhabi at the end of last season.
Alonso punished after reacting to Piastri On the grid at the start,
there was a mix of tyres across the top 10, with Verstappen and
team-mate Yuki Tsunoda on new hard rubber, along with Mercedes'
George Russell. The remainder were either on new or used mediums.
On the 90-metre run-down to Turn 1, Verstappen made a superb start
to retain his lead ahead of Carlos Sainz and Liam Lawson, but for
Piastri, it was a continuation of his nightmare from his crash in
qualifying. From ninth on the grid, Piastri initially made a jump
start. He immediately stopped, but as the car kicked into
anti-stall, the field behind swept by, leaving him last into the
first corner. Fernando Alonso reacted to Piastri and was handed a
five-second penalty for a jump start. Two corners later, however,
Piastri was astonishingly out of the race, locking up his fronts
and ploughing nose-first into a barrier. It sparked an immediate
safety car, which ended on the fourth lap. At the restart,
Verstappen again made a superb launch. Further back, Leclerc passed
Norris for eighth, leaving him in a Scuderia sandwich, with
Hamilton directly behind him. Out of Turn 16, seventh-placed Isack
Hadjar made an error that allowed Leclerc to sweep past initially,
before Norris edged by into Turn 1. Hamilton then claimed ninth
from the young Frenchman under DRS into the first corner at the
start of lap seven. After Russell passed Tsunoda on the approach to
Turn 3 two laps later, the Japanese driver continued to lead a DRS
train with Leclerc, Norris, and Hamilton behind him, causing a
stalemate. After 15 of the 51 laps, Verstappen had opened up a
four-second cushion over Sainz, who was just over three seconds
clear of Lawson. The New Zealander had both Mercedes drivers in his
wing mirrors. There was then a gap to the Tsunoda-led train, with
Hadjar adrift in 10th. Report continues below Norris suffers slow
stop On lap 16, Russell radioed through to say he had a tyre
advantage, being on the harder rubber compared to Kimi Antonelli's
mediums and, therefore, the pace to get past Lawson. That was taken
care of by Antonelli pitting at the end of lap 18. In between,
there was contact at the back between Williams' Alex Albon, who had
just taken on a fresh set of hard tyres, and Alpine's Franco
Colapinto into Turn 5, sending the Argentine spinning into a
barrier, earning the Thai-British driver a 10-second penalty.
Leclerc pitted after 19 laps in a bid to jump Tsunoda, followed a
lap later by third-placed Lawson, who emerged narrowly ahead of
Antonelli, only for the young Italian to clear the New Zealander
down the long straight. It was not until the end of lap 27 that the
next pit stop unfolded, with Sainz taking on the hard tyre, and
slotting into sixth. By lap 31, the top five ahead of the Spanish
driver - Verstappen, Russell, Tsunoda, Norris and Hamilton, leaving
the overall pecking order still up in the air - had yet to pit,
with the Dutch driver 13 seconds clear. From fifth, Hamilton
pitted, taking on the medium tyre he had previously favoured over
the weekend, slotting into ninth behind team-mate Leclerc. Norris
came in a lap later, but it was a slow 4.1s due to an issue with
the front-right, leaving him behind Lawson and Leclerc, and it was
pivotal. Tsunoda followed on the next lap, and although emerging
ahead of Lawson, the New Zealander swiftly moved ahead. Russell
waited until the end of lap 39, allowing him to perform an overcut
and emerge ahead of Sainz. Verstappen was the last to pit shortly
before Norris passed Leclerc on old rubber to move into seventh.
Hamilton did likewise on the Monégasque on lap 42 to move up to
eighth. The seven-time F1 champion then soon closed behind the
fifth-placed Lawson-led DRS train as he dragged along Tsunoda and
Norris. For Norris, there was no way through, leaving him to settle
for an unwanted seventh. Up ahead, Verstappen, who added the
fastest lap late on to complete a sixth grand chelem, took the
chequered flag by 14.6s to Russell, with Sainz a best result for
Williams this season of third. Antonelli put his European woes
behind him to claim fourth, followed by Lawson in a superb fifth
ahead of Tsunoda, Norris, Hamilton, Leclerc, with Hadjar 10th.
