Not quite "plain sailing": Baku's late-race chaos almost cost Russell victory over Verstappen

A blink of an eye. Just 0.196 seconds separated George Russell and Max Verstappen at the line of this year's Azerbaijan Grand Prix, a race that looked deigned to remain a slow-burner until Alex Albon dutifully dumped his Williams into the wall at Turn 5. Of course, it probably didn't feel like his most heroic hour, yet we should at least thank him for kindly injecting life into a humdrum encounter in Baku. It was for the greater good. The greater good.

Up until Albon's lap 30 lock-up, where the Anglo-Thai driver was busy keeping Esteban Ocon in his mirrors, George Russell was 11.1 seconds clear over Oscar Piastri. After the Mercedes driver had taken pole by over 0.8 seconds, you didn't need a crystal ball nor the reincarnation of Nostradamus to predict what would unfold; Piastri said the only way he'd be able to keep pace with Russell would be if the Mercedes had suddenly sprouted a tow bar overnight. Since Mercedes was not keen to acquiesce to that request, understandably, Russell very easily slinked off into the distance. Even with our current drivers' penchant for a bit of false modesty, Russell had to admit that it was "plain sailing" at this point of the race.

His cause had been helped by Piastri, who'd drawn clear of front-row starter Charles Leclerc at the race's opening and was gamely holding Max Verstappen off despite interminable pressure from the four-time champion. 

Verstappen was incensed after qualifying, in which he managed only eighth after an engine problem sapped away at his pace - not helped by Lando Norris' Turn 3 mistake that produced a yellow flag late into the session. In his quest to recover, Verstappen ticked off moves on the Alpines, Norris, and Lewis Hamilton in short order in the opening laps, then shuffled ahead of Leclerc and team-mate Isack Hadjar - but hit a bit of a block when it came to dealing with the McLaren. Piastri, running on the soft tyre in the opening stint, looked semi-vulnerable when Verstappen had gathered a tow down the start finish straight, but was doing just enough to keep his rival away from the overtake button with consistently impressive gap-gathering pace in the middle sector. 

In the meantime, Verstappen was struggling a touch with the medium tyre. Degradation was so low around Baku's city streets that the soft was genuinely the stronger option; the low level of lateral loads meant that it was harder to keep the medium in the right temperature window, and Verstappen's challenge fluctuated depending on the state of his tyres. It was unsurprising that Hadjar was attempting to chivvy Red Bull into switching the cars around, having caught the odd whiff of Piastri's aftershave, but the team left the pair in place even when Verstappen's challenge was starting to wane. 

Albon's crash helped Verstappen's cause significantly. Given the lack of degradation, there weren't any massive gaps forming throughout the order; even the leaders were struggling to identify a pit window in the first half of the race. The safety car provided one, presenting the entire field the opportunity to pit without potentially impacting their races with the variable of traffic. 

Albon said he braked a fraction later into Turn 5, but a gust of wind exacerbated the situation

Photo by: Sam Bagnall / Sutton Images via Getty Images

But this switched the momentum; Piastri was now required to run with the less-popular medium, while Verstappen could end his lamentations about the C4 with a switch to the soft. Russell, too, took the soft tyre - as it turned out, it was of considerable benefit that he was on the same strategy as Verstappen. 

Russell had to navigate the restart at the end of lap 35, using the old trick of dragging the field beyond the safety car line before pulling the pin mid-weave to wrong-foot his pursuers. It was a well-judged getaway and Russell easily kept control into the first corner, but Piastri's stranglehold on second was far more tenuous: Verstappen had finally been given the opportunity to make the pass, and he wasn't about to let it slip. It was a simple move, but a vital one; Verstappen got the run, placed the car down the inside line, and came up for air with second place.

He didn't know it at the time, of course, but Verstappen had been on a bit of a timer; all hell broke loose at Turn 1 when Franco Colapinto locked a wheel and nerfed team-mate Pierre Gasly, who in turn went into Norris and cannoned the McLaren into the wall. The Alpines had been running seventh and 10th at the time, and the points on offer were very quickly bundled down the drain in the melee; the Racing Bulls pair also endured a set-to when Arvid Lindblad locked up trying to avoid Esteban Ocon and tipped Liam Lawson into a spin. Unsurprisingly, the fracas and resulting shower of debris prompted Bernd Maylander to bring the safety car back into the lead.

"It felt like qualifying laps, one after another, and I knew I couldn’t make a single mistake. The last 10 laps were a bit more tense than the first 40" George Russell

The second restart had become even more tantalising as a result of Verstappen's brisk pass on Piastri, as Russell now had his mirrors full of Red Bull. Yet, again, the kick-off was managed well by Russell when the race resumed on the 39th lap, with enough of a gap over Verstappen to avoid having to make any sweaty-palmed defensive manoeuvres into the first corner.

"It’s the first restart I’ve done this season from the lead," Russell explained. "These power units are very challenging at restarts, getting the battery in the right place for turbo spinning at the right speed, and I always do good preparation on what I want to do at a restart. It needs a lot more thought into it than ever before. 

"I was keeping an eye on my mirrors where Max was, and I had waited for that moment when the gap was just slightly larger and managed to break him because I knew if he saw half a chance, he would have been sending it down the inside."

Although the leader yearned to reinstate his lost lead advantage with a rapid lap, Verstappen was going nowhere. On soft tyres, the Dutchman was a far happier bunny, and was digging out much more time in the middle sector than he'd been able to on the mediums. The balance of power was slightly different in this bout, however; Piastri had been able to stack his defence against Verstappen through   the final part of the first sector and in "the castle section" in Turns 8-12, while Russell fortified his advantage through Turns 13-15. Even with a Red Bull bearing down with overtake, Russell's Mercedes powertrain was proving more than adequate enough to keep Verstappen at bay.

Russell and Verstappen atoned for a tame first half of the race with a thrilling climax

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The difference was between a draggy McLaren with lower gear ratios, strong in medium-speed conditions, versus a Mercedes with brutal top speed. Verstappen needed intervention, either through Russell misfortune or something that would facilitate a sneak attack somewhere around the lap. 

He very nearly got it on the final lap. Valtteri Bottas' miserable afternoon came to a close when he stuffed his Cadillac into the wall at Turn 15, covered with a yellow flag as Russell and Verstappen approached. Russell lifted off by a considerable level, perhaps not wishing to risk a post-race investigation, but this upset his power unit in the process: the turbo stopped spooling, which cost Russell power once back on-throttle as it took a while to get back up to full speed. Verstappen saw a smash-and-grab victory in his sights, stalked Russell through the sweepers with a seismic slipstream, and drew alongside in an effort to snatch victory at the last moment. He missed out by less than two tenths of a second. Russell had done just enough to hang on.

It was of significant relief to Russell, and not just because of the tiny margin of victory. With Kimi Antonelli scampering off with a sizeable championship lead, Russell needed a big result to set his younger team-mate back and to underline the progress he's made in understanding how the 2026 cars operate. It hasn't come naturally to Russell, who perhaps was guilty of buying into his own championship hype at the start of the year, but Baku showed him at his very best. 

It helped that Antonelli had come to strife in qualifying, after sabotaging his own chances with a Turn 1 wall-clip in Q1 that relegated him to a 16th-place start. The Italian recovered to fifth in a deliberately conservative race, albeit helped by some of the chaos around him, to lessen the damage to his title lead.

"I think I never lost that faith in myself, even through tough moments I knew there was a reason why I was off the pace," he reflected. "It wasn’t like I just suddenly forgot how to drive, and I knew I would be able to find it again. I just had to be patient. So, I feel confident. It’s been four races since the break. I’ve been on the front row in three of them, three podiums from the four races. I feel I can fight for victory week-in, week-out now.

"I think Max and myself were probably the two quickest drivers out there, and the soft tyre looked the best tyre, so I think that was maybe not allowing Max to get past Piastri. But, yeah, clearly that final stint, the two of us were exceptionally fast and we were pulling a second a lap almost to the rest of the field, which was really good fun, to be honest. It felt like qualifying laps, one after another, and I knew I couldn’t make a single mistake. But certainly, the last 10 laps were a bit more tense than the first 40."

Verstappen had something cheer after overcoming the disappointment of Friday qualifying

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Verstappen even cracked a smile, despite his frustrations from qualifying seeping into Saturday's race, allied to his palpable lack of patience for the whims of the medium tyre. Even though he considered this Red Bull's best chance to win in 2026, the Dutchman reserved a bit of credit for Russell's efforts - high praise, given that the two haven't always seen eye to eye. When things didn't go his way, Verstappen didn't lash out - he offered the necessary plaudits and borderline humility. 

"I think even if I started second, I think the pace of George, it would have been very hard to pass," Verstappen reckoned. "So maybe I could have followed him a bit better, of course, then in that first stint. Then you box, you’re second, behind, and then probably we would have done the same race, just pushing each other along. It would have for sure made my first stint a bit easier instead of overtaking all the cars that I had to. 

"It wasn’t like I just suddenly forgot how to drive, and I knew I would be able to find it again. I just had to be patient. I feel I can fight for victory week-in, week-out now"
George Russell

"Those last laps were very enjoyable because there was barely any deg, really. We were just pushing to the end and the gap was always, like, one second, 1.1, so that was nice. And, of course, it looked close on the line, but I think that was more because I think George suffered from a little bit of boost lag in 15 with the yellow flag. So if you look at the last stint, it was always one second, so that’s probably also where we would have finished."

Verstappen led a double Red Bull podium, its first since 2024's Chinese Grand Prix, as Hadjar crossed the line third when Piastri speared off the road with 11 laps to go. Hadjar was looking to pounce on the McLaren, the two having been left behind slightly by dint of their medium tyres, but both front tyres on the McLaren locked up and parted the seas for Hadjar to claim his second F1 podium. Having been out of the car since July as a result of his training injury, Hadjar showed very few (if any) signs of race rustiness and was excellent throughout the weekend - no wonder he's earned a new deal for next year.

Regardless, Russell's plan for the rest of the season is simple: "win every race". Sepang and Singapore, however, will be testing encounters - not least due to the punishing humidity in south-east Asia. While Russell might feel like he's building momentum, Antonelli managed Baku well - if you can't win, limit the damage to the championship lead rather than take risks. It's a maxim every successful championship victory was built upon. 

Russell knows he needs to keep winning - he's 66 points behind Antonelli in the title fight

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