Five Winners, Five Losers: Azerbaijan Grand Prix
- Peter Johnson
- 11 hours ago
- 6 min read
Written by Peter Johnson, Edited by Meghana Sree
A dreadful weekend for McLaren in Baku opened the door for others to shine. Who took the spotlight and who else faltered?
Winner - Max Verstappen
A phenomenal pole lap in testing conditions on Saturday set Max Verstappen up for a dominant victory on Sunday, romping home to win by 14.6 seconds and claiming his sixth career Grand Slam.
The weekend was a huge success for the Red Bull team as a whole, with Yuki Tsunoda’s sixth-placed finish ensuring their highest-scoring race of the season.
Verstappen has earned 68 points from a possible 75 in the three races since the summer break, by far the most of any driver over the same period. George Russell (40) and Oscar Piastri (33) are the only other men to have claimed more than 25 points in that time.
Now 69 points behind championship leader Oscar Piastri with seven Grand Prix and three sprints remaining, he couldn’t, could he?
Winner - Carlos Sainz
Carlos Sainz has been rather bereft of luck all season long and if ever a man were due a positive weekend it was surely the Spaniard.
Without a point in six races and with just one point to his name since the Monaco Grand Prix in May, only Alpine’s Franco Colapinto was on a more barren run than Sainz.
However, the Spaniard’s fortunes showed signs of reversing earlier in the week after an unprecedented stewards’ decision to rescind the two penalty points he controversially collected at the Dutch Grand Prix last month.
Come Saturday and Sainz must surely have thought for a moment that he was heading for pole position as the rain began to fall during Q3, but a front row start alongside Verstappen was still nothing to be sniffed at.
His Williams then showed some of its early-season pace, with the man from Madrid running a comfortable second before being undercut by the Mercedes of Russell.
A late charge from Kimi Antonelli for the final podium spot was in vain, and Sainz deservedly claimed his first podium for Williams.
On an historic day for the Grove-based outfit, the team also collected its first podium under James Vowles and its first top-three finish since Russell’s second place at the otherwise not-so-fondly-remembered 2021 Belgian Grand Prix.
Winner - Liam Lawson
Another man whose 2025 has not exactly gone to plan so far is Liam Lawson, but the New Zealander likewise recorded his best result of the season in Baku.
In fact, it was a career-best fifth-placed finish for the Kiwi, who crucially held off a much-improved Tsunoda in the Red Bull.
Tsunoda was another driver who seriously needed a big result, but despite delivering his best race for Red Bull to date, he could not get past the one man against whom the big bosses are comparing his every move.
The Azerbaijan Grand Prix could prove to be a significant weekend in the careers of both men, and it was a triumph for Lawson.
Winner - Mercedes
In a weekend of redemption for many, young Antonelli was another to net a much-needed points haul.
With only three points to his name in the last six races, and just three top-ten finishes in the past ten rounds, pressure had been mounting on the young Italian, whose boss Toto Wolff described his weekend at Monza as “underwhelming”.
However, Baku marked a rare occasion on which Antonelli out-qualified his teammate Russell. The Briton did leapfrog him in the race, but it marked an assured performance by the man from Bologna, who took a much-needed fourth-placed finish.
Russell, for his part, was carrying an illness all weekend, missing Thursday’s media day in an attempt to manage his fitness. Wolff even revealed after the race that it was “touch and go” as to whether reserve driver Valtteri Bottas would be required to deputise.
Putting his flu to one side, Russell delivered a trademark drive on Sunday, keeping his nose clean and remaining largely anonymous but concluding the weekend on the podium.
To top off a positive weekend, the Silver Arrows also capitalised on a shocking weekend for Ferrari to snatch second place in the Constructors’ Championship.
Winner - Baku
Regularly one of the most entertaining race weekends of the season, on Saturday morning it was announced that the Azerbaijan Grand Prix would continue to be held until at least 2030.
A rare case in modern-day Formula One of a new street circuit capturing the hearts and minds of drivers and fans, long live the annual jaunt to the streets of the Azeri capital.
Well done Baku.
Loser - Oscar Piastri
For a man who has made precisely two costly mistakes all season (in Australia and Great Britain), the Azerbaijan Grand Prix weekend was a nightmare for Piastri.
The championship leader showed rare weakness not once, not twice, but three times in Baku. His crash in qualifying consigned the Australian to a tenth-placed start on Sunday, while a jump start at lights out sent him tumbling to the back of the field.
Just five corners later and, in a desperate attempt to scythe his way back through the field, Piastri’s race ended in the wall following a lock-up.
The incident brought to an end the Australian’s streak of 34 top ten finishes in Grands Prix and 42 consecutive points-scoring weekends.
All Piastri could do for the rest of the afternoon was spectate from the side of the track, with teammate Lando Norris presented with a golden opportunity to close the gap in the championship battle…
Loser - Lando Norris
If ever there were a weekend for Norris to reignite his championship charge, this was it. With Piastri making errors galore, Norris had the chance not only to vastly outqualify his championship rival but also to outscore him considerably on Sunday.
Instead, an error on his final Q3 lap saw Norris qualify seventh in essentially an eight-car shootout, before a frustrating race spent behind Tsunoda, not helped by a slow pit stop, culminated in a seventh-placed finish and a meagre six points.
The Briton remains a sizable 25 points behind Piastri and given the form of a certain Verstappen, it is questionable whether even his second place in the World Championship is assured.
McLaren’s Constructors’ title may well be all but assured, but with any more weekends remotely reminiscent of what we saw in Baku, there may still be more life in the Drivers’ Championship than anybody foresaw.
Loser - Ferrari
It may have been just the second weekend all season (after Canada) that Ferrari were not outscored by McLaren, but that was more as a result of Norris and Piastri’s respective horror shows than an impressive result on the part of the Scuderia.
Ferrari were in the mix across the three practice sessions, with Lewis Hamilton even leading a 1-2 for the team in P2. A set-up misstep and a contrary tyre strategy were the Briton’s undoing in qualifying, however, as he was left to set a single lap on the sub-optimal soft tyre while others were fitted with the preferred medium.
Charles Leclerc’s Q3 then ended prematurely with a crash at Turn 15, far from the Monégasque’s first session-ending incident in Baku.”I am stupid”, anyone?
Despite the pace shown on Friday, the Ferraris’ forward progress on Sunday was underwhelming, eventually settling for eighth and ninth.
Matching McLaren’s six points means the Constructors’ Championship is still technically in play, although Mercedes’ impressive points haul sees the Italian team slip to third in the table.
Loser - Alex Albon
Alex Albon can be forgiven a rare off-colour weekend, but his crash in qualifying and frustrating race, embodied by his 10-second penalty for a clumsy move on Franco Colapinto, were more noticeable for their stark contrast to Sainz’s superb result.
Albon can count himself unfortunate that he is yet to be rewarded with such a headline result considering his efforts for Williams over recent seasons, but on a weekend when the form book was turned on its head, he was one driver who experienced an uncharacteristic dip in performance.
Loser - Aston Martin
A completely anonymous weekend for the Silverstone-based team, with Fernando Alonso’s jump start and resulting penalty the only Aston-related incident of note, culminated with a pointless finish and a drop to seventh in the Constructors’ Championship.
On a more commendable note, Alonso and teammate Lance Stroll now have 600 race starts between them - an impressive feat.
However, it is now two races without a point for Aston Martin, who had appeared to have turned a corner heading into the summer break.
With Racing Bulls on a hot streak, seventh place may well be the team’s ceiling now.
