Mercedes driver George Russell has taken a dominant pole-to-flag victory at Formula 1’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix, overcoming two safety cars to beat Max Verstappen and clinch his third grand prix win of 2026.
Russell took pole by a massive eight tenths on Friday and confirmed Mercedes’ dominance in race trim. The Briton led either side of a pair of mid-race safety cars to snare his first win since June’s Austrian Grand Prix, while team-mate Kimi Antonelli could only manage fifth.
At the start Russell made a good getaway to defend his lead on the short burst towards Turn 1, with Piastri picking off second-starting Charles Leclerc.
Russell started on medium tyres with his nearest rivals on softs, but tyre degradation wasn’t much of a factor on the low-impact street circuit, reducing race strategy to a simple one-stopper at the most opportune moment.
The Briton quickly broke free of the pack while Piastri and team-mate Lando Norris, who had passed Isack Hadjar four fourth, immediately came under pressure from the two Red Bulls. Hadjar and Verstappen appeared stronger on the straights than the Mercedes-powered papaya cars, who also struggled for traction out of Turn 16, the corner leading onto Baku’s massive 2km straight.
After Verstappen cleared Pierre Gasly and Lewis Hamilton, both he and Hadjar made their way past Norris and put pressure on second-placed Piastri, with Hadjar waving his team-mate by. But as Verstappen started to go through a graining phase on his medium tyres, his challenge on Piastri stalled, making soft-tyre runner Hadjar impatient about having a go at the McLaren driver instead.
Franco Colapinto, Alpine, Lando Norris, McLaren, Pierre Gasly, Alpine
Photo by: Michael Potts / LAT images via Getty Images
Mid-race safety car plunges race into chaos
Just as Hadjar was given the green light to start challenging Verstappen, the race was interrupted by a safety car on lap 30 of 51 for a crash by Alex Albon. While holding off Esteban Ocon for a distant 13th place, the Williams driver locked up his tyres into Turn 5 and pierced the TecPro barriers on exit, escaping without harm.
With every frontrunner yet to make their one and only pitstop, the stoppage led to a flurry of activity it the pits, with Russell retaining his lead from Piastri, Verstappen, Hadjar, Leclerc and Hamilton, while Norris dropped to ninth behind Gasly and Antonelli after going deep into Turn 1.
That error would go on to haunt Norris as all hell broke loose on the lap 36 restart. While Verstappen picked off Piastri for second, Franco Colapinto locked up his tyres and speared into Alpine team-mate Gasly, taking Norris out with them as Antonelli narrowly escaped the carnage. In the background there was more intra-team contact as Arvid Lindblad punted Liam Lawson into a spin, with the Turn 1 melee breeding another safety car.
The entire top 10 held station on a much more timid second restart on lap 39, with Russell leading from Verstappen, Piastri, Hadjar and Leclerc. But on the following tour there was more Baku drama for Piastri as he went deep into Turn 1 while defending against Hadjar, throwing away a potential podium.
Amid all the chaos, the double neutralisation turned what should have been a cruise for Russell into a nail-biting finish, defending against an aggressive four-time world champion in Verstappen.
But Russell held on in a drag race to the finish to hold off the Dutchman, with Hadjar joining the pair on the podium on his ironclad return from injury. Leclerc finished fourth ahead of Antonelli, who came back from 16th on the grid after a qualifying crash.
Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Mercedes, Franco Colapinto, Alpine, Lando Norris, McLaren
Photo by: Guido De Bortoli / LAT Images via Getty Images
As Antonelli predicted before the race, repeating his spectacular Monza comeback win was going to be tough on the streets of Baku. The championship leader had made his way up to eighth by the time the race was yellow-flagged, and then benefitted from the Turn 1 chaos and overtook Hamilton for fifth.
Lindblad crossed the line in seventh, beating Esteban Ocon at the line by 0.030s, with Haas team-mate Oliver Bearman in ninth, while Carlos Sainz sneaked into a points finish in a heavily upgraded Williams car.
Both Aston Martin cars again failed to make the finish after the team’s latest horror weekend, while Cadillac’s Valtteri Bottas ended the race in the wall on the final lap.
Courtesy of his third win of the campaign and first since Austria, Russell claws back 15 points to Antonelli in the championship, now trailing his team-mate by 66 points going into next weekend’s Bahrain Grand Prix hosted by Malaysia.
F1 Azerbaijan GP – Race results
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– The Autosport.com Team
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