George Russell's best performance of the year took him back to the top step of the podium and kept at least a little pressure on Kimi Antonelli in the Formula One title race. Russell was brilliant in Baku and took his first win since Austria in June, and first ever victory having led the Azerbaijan Grand Prix from start to finish. It was a performance streets ahead of anything else he has been able to produce in recent months.
Russell's dominant weekend
Russell said: "It was amazing to be back on the top step of the podium. Thanks to the team, because they've continued to believe in me through a tough moment, helped me come through it. I'm really proud to have had this weekend."
Russell dominated practice and qualifying and converted that into maximum points on Saturday, though he only narrowly denied Max Verstappen at the last. But while his 0.837-second pole margin was evidence of his dominance in qualifying, the 0.196 seconds he beat the Dutchman by was in no way reflective of his race performance.
Safety cars and Verstappen's challenge
He was well over 10 seconds clear when two safety car periods in quick succession removed that advantage. Verstappen made light work of dispatching Oscar Piastri and was soon all over the back of the Mercedes, hunting a first win of the year. He might have got it, had the finish line been a little further down Baku's 1.4-mile straight.
Verstappen was closing all the way along it but ran out of road and, given Russell's performance over the weekend, the Brit was the deserving winner anyway. And the 15-point swing has kept his faint glimmer of title hope alive.
Antonelli's costly error
He is 66 points adrift which is still an enormous mountain to climb, but Russell's calm approach to dominating this weekend, compared to Antonelli's rash qualifying error which cost him here, showed that experience could perhaps still come out on top. Antonelli started down in 16th after clipping the wall and breaking his suspension early in qualifying, the Italian admitting afterwards he was "mad" at himself for such a silly error.
He won from 19th at Monza a few weeks ago so no one was ruling out a repeat, but it was always going to be much harder on a longer, less-forgiving street circuit like Baku. And Antonelli admitted he drove within himself in the race, which limited him to fifth place by the end.
The 20-year-old said: "Today was one of those days where you have to be happy with P5. It was one of those weekends where I was always a step behind but, overall, I'm happy with P5. I'll just make sure that, next weekend, I'll be back at my level. George has done an incredible weekend. He's driven incredibly and had a lot of confidence. This weekend was my worst of the year by far, in terms of performance. I just didn't drive or take the same risks, especially after qualifying. Today was more 'damage save' mode, rather than full attack."
Red Bull and Ferrari fortunes
Behind Verstappen, Isack Hadjar impressively completed Red Bull's first double podium since early 2024 on his first weekend back after missing three races with a broken wrist. But it was another underwhelming weekend for Ferrari, Lewis Hamilton admitting it was "a pretty bad race" for him again.
