Verstappen wins as Sainz shines and Piastri stumbles in Baku

Max Verstappen stood tall with another flag-to-flag win in Baku, but it was Carlos Sainz who stole the spotlight with a standout podium on a day that saw Oscar Piastri’s title charge dented by a string of first-lap misjudgments.

With this weekend’s slogan ‘Expect The Unexpected’ already ringing true, a shaken-up starting grid and the looming threat of late rain made Round 17 one of the most highly anticipated races of the season thus far.

Matching Saturday’s chaos, Oscar Piastri’s opening lap went from bad to worse when the Australian dropped to dead last after jumping the start.

The obvious infringement was noted by the stewards, and Piastri was eventually handed a five-second penalty which may potentially carry over to the Singapore Grand Prix, while Fernando Alonso was also penalised after reacting to the McLaren driver as opposed to the five lights.

Catching himself out, Piastri then stopped on the grid, with his MCL39 switching into anti-stall before he was finally able to trail the back of the pack, however, it was a short-lived six corners before his race came to a crashing halt at Turn 6.

McLaren’s efforts to rebuild Piastri’s chassis following his late crash in Qualifying were wasted when the #81 locked up and charged nose-first into the unforgiving barriers, leaving his championship rival with his greatest chance of the season to close the 31-point margin. 

Once the crumbled McLaren had been cleared, the race restarted on Lap 5 with pole-sitter Max Verstappen leading the charge ahead of Carlos Sainz and Liam Lawson, who both managed to hold position while the out-of-position front-runners began their chase. 

Moving into the top-ten was light work for the Ferrari duo, who started in P12 and P10 after a disappointing Saturday in Baku, with Charles Leclerc overpowering Lando Norris to move into P7 after the race restart.

Disposing of the sole remaining McLaren was a tougher task for Lewis Hamilton, with the Ferrari driver starting to lose touch with Norris as he ebbed and flowed from DRS range.

The Mercedes duo were also targeting a double-overtake on Yuki Tsunoda, and after nearly taking one another out at the first turn when the Safety Car period came to an end, George Russell was the last of the Silver Arrows to pick Tsunoda off for P5.

At the head of the field, Verstappen had put over three seconds between himself and his former Toro Rosso teammate in P2, with Lawson also holding steady in third place despite the growing threat of Kimi Antonelli in his VCARB 02’s mirrors. 

Wasting precious laps and valuable tyre life, the Mercedes rookie spent countless laps running seven-tenths behind Lawson, with his inability to close the margin to the RB bringing Russell back into contention.

Just five-tenths separated the teammates as the first third of the race ticked by, with Russell then jumping on team radio to put his case of “tyre advantage” over Lawson forward in the hopes of Mercedes pulling the team orders trigger. 

Solving the solution in the pitlane, Mercedes were the first of the front-runners to call their driver in for a fresh set of tyres, with Antonelli pitting for new hard compound tyres on Lap 19. 

Still watching on from the scene of his accident at Turn 5, Piastri had the best seat in the house to see the collision between Franco Colapinto and Alex Albon, where the two drivers learnt that two into one apex doesn’t work as the Alpine was spun around by the Williams driver.  

Running with a broken front wing, Albon remained out on track while the stewards investigated his involvement in the incident, while Leclerc was called into the pits.

Lawson also made his first stop of the race on Lap 20, covering off Antonelli’s attempted undercut as he exited the pitlane just metres ahead of the Italian who had worked more temperature into his tyres.

Weaving to build temperature in his hard compound tyres, Lawson defended for the entire lap, however, as the rookie battle continued on down the 2.2km main straight, Antonelli’s added slipstream advantage allowed Car No.12 to fly by Car No.30 as they arrived at the first turn.

Antonelli continued his charge through the field as he made an overtake on Gabriel Bortoleto, while the pressure on Lawson, sitting in the final points-scoring position, only increased when Leclerc appeared in his mirrors. 

Without the buffer of the Racing Bulls driver behind him, Sainz’s margin over the driver in third place started to shrink as the wet weather from the Caspian Sea began to close in. 

Playing strategist from the cockpit, the Spaniard advised the Williams pit wall that he “wouldn’t let Russell get within the undercut” when the interval was edging closer towards two seconds.

As a result, the #55 was called into the pitlane on Lap 27, a decision which allowed Sainz to rejoin almost three seconds ahead of Antonelli, with the familiar buffer of a Racing Bulls driver separating the Baku competitors at the halfway mark of the race.

Inheriting the Spaniard’s position, Russell and his race engineer Marcus Dudley agreed to extend their first stint on the hard tyre, however, the margin to the lonesome race leader, who was continuing to show “brilliant” pace, only grew.

Opting to make his first stop in order to undercut Tsunoda, the sole-remaining McLaren pulled into the pitlane on Lap 37, however, in a cruel moment of déjà vu, it was another slow 4.1-second stop for Norris.

Emerging from the pitlane under two seconds behind the battle for sixth between Lawson and Leclerc, Norris’ race was significantly impacted by the issue with his front right tyre a she soon found himself held up in a tense DRS train. 

On the following lap, the Red Bull driver reacted to Norris’ stop, emerging in line with the RB driver he replaced earlier in the season which added a personal element to the unrelenting battle that Lawson ultimately won with the aid of warmer tyres. 

The tyre temperature deficit saw Tsunoda drop off Lawson’s gearbox, pushing Leclerc further back into Norris’ reach until the pair were separated by just five-tenths.

With ten laps to go, Norris made the overtake stick on the struggling Ferrari driver into Turn 1, however, that was all the progress the Brit could make as Lawson controlled the lead of the train. 

Growing tired, the Japanese driver attempted to dive around the outside of the #30 through the first turn, with Norris also trying his luck through the sequence of straights that followed, though it wasn’t enough to shift the order of the stagnant four-way battle for P5 — a battle which aided Sainz in holding onto the final podium position as it kept the competition at bay.

With first place off the cards given Verstappen’s instant runaway in the lead, second and third place were still an ongoing battle between the Mercedes duo and Sainz. 

Williams’ hopeful undercut on the #63 was proven to be unsuccessful after Russell emerged from the pitlane 1.3 seconds ahead of Sainz, leaving the Spaniard to defend from the rookie closing in his mirrors. 

Running on almost 10-lap older tyres, Antonelli managed to halve the three-second interval between himself and a second career podium finish, however, after instructing his team to “leave it to me”, Sainz found a second burst of life to not only maintain the interval but increase it to 2.5 seconds as he crossed the finish line.

Hailing the third-place finish in Baku as one of the best of his career, Sainz scored 15 points to grow his team’s total beyond the 100-point mark, notably doing so at the same circuit where Williams scored its most recent full-length Grand Prix podium with Lance Stroll in 2017.

As for the battle further behind, Lawson held strong during the last lap attacks to claim fifth place, while Tsunoda, Norris, and the two Ferraris filtered across the finish line behind. 

Taking the chequered flag in a much-deserved first place after remaining out of the spotlight for the entire 51 laps around the Baku City Circuit, Max Verstappen scored his second race victory in a row.

The Dutch driver described his race as “straightforward” despite noting the tough conditions, with his only action coming in the form of a productive pitstop, which Red Bull performed with ten laps remaining.

Today’s flag-to-flag victory brings the reigning world champion within 69 points of Oscar Piastri, while Lando Norris, unable to capitalise on his teammate’s run of 34 consecutive points finishes coming to an end, only picked up six points in Baku.

As a result, McLaren also failed to clinch the Constructors’ Championship, with the Woking-based outfit not meeting the requirement of outscoring Ferrari by nine points this weekend to seal the deal. 

Piastri and Norris will take another swing at cementing the title in two weeks when F1 jets to Singapore for the hot and humid Singapore Grand Prix night race, running across October 03-05. 

Image: Andrew Ferraro/LAT Images // Getty Images / Red Bull Content Pool.

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