Max Verstappen went from pole position to the top of the podium on Sunday, winning the Azerbaijan Grand Prix in a dominant performance.
It was the second consecutive win for Verstappen, following his victory two weeks ago at the Italian Grand Prix, and his fourth of the season.
Verstappen, from the Netherlands, never was overtaken on the Baku City Circuit.
“I think this weekend has been incredible for us,” the Red Bull driver said.
“Of course, it’s not easy around here,” he added. “It was very windy today, so the car was always moving around a lot, but of course, I’m incredibly happy with this performance.”
Joining him on the podium were George Russell of Mercedes, who finished 14.6 seconds behind, a Carlos Sainz of Williams, who was 19.1 seconds out.
For Williams, it marked the first team podium appearance since 2021.
“Honestly, I cannot describe how happy I am or how good this feels,” the Spaniard Sainz after the race. “It tastes even better than the first-ever podium that I did.
“We’ve been fighting hard all year and, finally today, we just proved that when we have the speed. We’ve had it all year, and when everything comes together, we can do some amazing things together.
“We nailed the race — not one mistake, and we managed to beat a lot of cars that … I wasn’t expecting to beat.”
While the weekend was a huge success for Verstappen and Red Bull — his teammate, Yuki Tsunoda of Japan, was sixth — as well as for Sainz, it was a shock for the McLaren duo of Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris, who stand 1-2 in the drivers’ standings.
Piastri, of Australia, crashed on the opening lap and Great Britain’s Norris finished seventh, narrowing Piastri’s lead on his teammate to 25 points. With the win, reigning four-time champion Verstappen now stands just 69 points out with seven races to go on the season.
After a crash in qualifying on Saturday, Piastri started ninth on the grid and bemoaned his lost opportunities of the weekend.
“Certainly not my finest moment,” Piastri told Sky Sports F1 after the race.
“Today was silly mistake. Certainly a messy weekend, for sure,” Piastri continued. “I would be more concerned if I was slow and trying to make up for it and having these errors because of that.
“The fact they’re just simple lapses in judgment, it’s obviously not a position that I want to be in or want to put the mechanics in, because it’s been a rough weekend for them.”
The next F1 stop is the Singapore Grand Prix on Oct. 5.
–Field Level Media
