George Russell trumped Max Verstappen to the chequered flag in a nail-biting finish at Baku. Here’s how the drivers fared at the Formula 1 Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
Russell rounded off a dominant race weekend on the streets of Baku to win for the first time this season since Austria. Max Verstappen mounted a spirited bid for his first outright win of 2026 but missed the mark by just a tenth of a second at the chequered flag.
Capping off the podium, Isack Hadjar marked a triumphant comeback with Red Bull after his summer break wrist injury.
George Russell: 10
Grid Position: P1, Race Result: P1
In his own words, it was a “flawless” performance at the Baku City Street Circuit for the Mercedes driver.
Russell was in fine form in his W17 from the get-go, topping Thursday practice. And while Verstappen signalled his intention to spoil his party by snatching P1 in FP3, Russell sailed to a dominant pole position during qualifying.
The Briton was eight-tenths faster than Charles Leclerc in Q3 – the biggest qualifying margin of F1’s latest era – and drove a controlled race on Saturday to take the win.
That said, it wasn’t all straightforward for Russell, with the charging RB22 of Verstappen on his gearbox for most of the latter half of the race. But he prevailed over the Dutchman in a nail-biting finish to the chequered flag, reducing his championship arrears to team-mate Andrea Kimi Antonelli to 66 points heading into the race weekend at Sepang.
Kimi Antonelli: 7.5
Grid Position: P16, Race Result: P5
Back-to-back wins at Monza and the Madring had seen Antonelli extend his championship lead over Russell, but Baku had a twist of fate waiting for the 20-year-old.
Antonelli’s Q1 shunt could turn out to be the defining moment of his maiden title bid, with a broken front-left suspension having consigned him to the eighth-row of the grid for the race on Saturday.
The Mercedes driver lacked pure pace at Baku. That said, restraint during the 51-lap race and floor damage at the Safety Car restart meant he took the chequered flag in fifth. It was damage limitation for Antonelli, and despite losing points, he still holds a sizeable advantage over Russell in the drivers’ standings.
But mistakes like Antonelli’s often determine championships. On a weekend where his team-mate was near-perfect, Antonelli would be cursing his luck on the streets of Baku.
Max Verstappen: 9
Grid Position: P8, Race Result: P2
Verstappen was at his absolute best once again at Baku. Throughout practice and qualifying, the Dutchman looked like the closest rival to the utter dominance of Russell.
But issues with his power unit in the top-10 shootout meant he could only post the eighth-fastest lap in Q3. That, however, did not mean Verstappen wasn’t able to drag his RB22 into race-winning contention.
Much of the final phase of the 51-lap race was a cat-and-mouse game between the 28-year-old and the Mercedes of Russell.
The four-time World Champion missed out on his maiden win of the latest regulations by just a tenth of a second at the chequered flag.
And while Russell has been commended for a flawless performance, maybe the only flaw in Verstappen’s weekend was that RBPT-Ford power unit in the back of his car.
Isack Hadjar: 8.5
Grid Position: P4, Race Result: P3
Red Bull’s decision to extend Hadjar’s contract into next season has been vindicated by the 21-year-old.
Hadjar had delivered a solid stint with Red Bull in the first half of the season, capped off by his podium at Monaco (which ironically was only confirmed at Monza after the summer break).
His wrist injury during the summer break, however, meant he missed three races on the trot.
Naturally, making a comeback after almost two months of not having driven the RB22, it wouldn’t have been remiss for the French-Algerian driver to have taken some time to settle in.
But he hit the ground running around the twisty and narrow streets of Baku. A stellar qualifying saw him outpace Verstappen and earn a second-row starting grid slot.
During the race, Hadjar was more than comparable to his team-mate, as he kept himself in podium contention and pinned to the gearbox of Verstappen in the opening phases.
Hadjar benefitted from Oscar Piastri’s late-race lock-up to get himself into the final podium place and kept it at the chequered flag.
Charles Leclerc: 7
Grid Position: P2, Race Result: P4
Leclerc’s front-row start wasn’t much cause for celebration for Ferrari in the context of the gap to Russell.
That said, the Monegasque would have expected to at least be able to mount a challenge for the podium on Saturday. It became quite clear that that was not to be the case at the start, with the SF-26 nowhere near the likes of Mercedes and Red Bull in terms of outright pace.
In the end, Leclerc took the chequered flag 14 seconds behind the leaders, dropping down to fourth.
Lewis Hamilton: 7.5
Grid Position: P6, Race Result: P6
Baku turned out to be yet another disappointing footnote in Hamilton’s 2026 title bid. The ADUO 2 Ferrari power unit in the back of Hamilton’s SF-26 proved to be his Achilles’ heel on the long straights throughout the 51-lap race.
His sixth-place finish means he is now more than 100 points behind championship leader Antonelli, heading into the race weekend at Sepang.
Arvid Lindblad: 8
Grid Position: P15, Race Result: P7
It was a strong result for Racing Bulls and Lindblad after a compromised qualifying.
Chaos around the British-Swedish driver let him stage a solid drive into the points, but the first Safety Car restart left a bad taste in the mouth for his team-mate Liam Lawson and the Faenza-based squad.
That said, despite driving into his team-mate, Lindblad did not sustain enough damage to his car or his talent and still scored a handsome haul of points at the end of the 51-lap race.
Liam Lawson: 6.5
Grid Position: P11, Race Result: P12
It was a largely frustrating race for Lawson at the Baku City Street Circuit, owing primarily to the incident with his team-mate at the first Safety Car restart.
The Kiwi driver, on his first weekend back with Racing Bulls since Zandvoort, was pummelled into by Lindblad. The impact left him with massive damage, and unable to stage any sort of recovery in the final 15 laps.
Esteban Ocon: 7.5
Grid Position: P13, Race Result: P8
Ocon’s Haas stint might well and truly be coming to an end after 2026. The Frenchman has not been able to blow his much younger team-mate Oliver Bearman out of the water, and Ayao Komatsu may just bend his will for Ferrari junior Rafael Câmara.
That said, off late, Ocon has been making a strong case for himself to get back into a race seat elsewhere for 2027. His charge up from 13th on the grid and into the points is just another footnote in favor of his case.
Oliver Bearman: 7
Grid Position: P10, Race Result: P9
Haas has struggled in the development race against its rivals throughout this season. A strong package in the shape of the VF-26 has quickly turned into a tricky demon to haul for Bearman.
But at Baku, the Briton delivered a measured performance in the midfield, not only making it into Q3, but also breaking his point-less streak subsisting since Monaco to take the chequered flag in ninth.
Carlos Sainz: 8
Grid Position: P14, Race Result: P10
It was a return to form for Sainz at Baku. 2026 has been a year of struggles for the former Ferrari driver but he broke a disappointing trend by securing his first Q3 appearance of the year on Friday.
That said, a grid drop for a yellow flag infringement meant he started the race from 14th on the grid.
The FW48, however, had race pace to unlock and Sainz was able to claw his Williams back into the points, at the chequered flag, for the first time since Canada in May.
Alex Albon: N/A
Grid Position: P12, Race Result: DNF
It was a promising outing for the British-Thai driver in the sister FW48. While he was unable to proceed through to Q3 like his team-mate, he ran as high as 11th during the 51-lap race.
But after 29 laps of navigating through the twisty Baku layout, a lock-up into Turn 5 ended Albon’s afternoon.
Wind had been a pain point for drivers throughout the weekend, and the flawed aerodynamic profile of the 2026 Williams coupled with “big wind gust” may have caught him out and led to the “weird crash” that meant he left Baku as one of the retirees.
Nico Hulkenberg: 7
Grid Position: P18, Race Result: P11
Audi’s progress towards the sharp end of the midfield has faltered slightly in the last couple of weekends. That said, while lacking one lap pace, Hulkenberg more than made it up with some measured driving throughout the 51-lap race on Saturday.
While he just finished outside the points, it was more to do with a dearth of top speed on the long straights at Baku than a matter of the German driver’s ineptness to extract whatever pace his car had.
Gabriel Bortoleto: 6
Grid Position: P17, Race Result: P15
The last four race weekends have been a difficult phase for the Brazilian driver alongside Hulkenberg in the sister Audi.
Baku was the fifth weekend in a row that Bortoleto has failed to finish in the points. On Saturday, despite taking the chequered flag in 13th, a time penalty for a yellow flag infringement saw him fall down the order and into 15th for the final race classification.
Oscar Piastri: 5.5
Grid Position: P3, Race Result: P13
It would seem that nothing is working for the Australian in F1’s latest era. The hangover from his title charge fizzling out in the dying embers of 2025 has carried over to 2026.
Baku, last year, was a race to forget for Piastri, and the 51-lap race on Saturday would have to be filed in the same sorry cabinet.
The McLaren driver was running as high as second in the opening phases of the race but had to make way for the faster, more clinical Verstappen. And while he would have hoped for at least a podium, a late-race lock-up ended those hopes as he filtered out of the points and stayed there at the chequered flag.
Lando Norris: N/A
Grid Position: P5, Race Result: DNF
It was a less-than-flattering race for Norris anyway until Franco Colapinto decided to pull the plug on the MCL40’s afternoon.
While Norris was in the points, he was nowhere near the sharp end of the field in terms of performance. At the Safety Car restart, Colapinto’s late-braking shennanigans into Turn 1 meant the Argentine driver hit his team-mate Pierre Gasly, who in turn, punted Norris into the barriers and out of the race.
Sergio Perez: 6.5
Grid Position: P20, Race Result: P14
It was a solid performance by Perez at Baku. While his team-mate Valtteri Bottas was over a second off the Mexican’s pace in Q1, Perez had to start behind the Finnish driver owing to a three-place grid drop for a qualifying infringement.
The race saw him being competitive but the inherent lack of competitiveness of his Cadillac meant he was not going to score the team’s first F1 championship points at Baku.
Retirements around him, and a time penalty for Bortoleto meant he was classified as 14th at the end of the race.
Valtteri Bottas: N/A
Grid Position: P19, Race Result: DNF
Bottas was wildly off pace during qualifying and simply unable to keep his Cadillac between the white lines till the chequered flag dropped.
Though he argued that his crash was owing to technical problems with his Ferrari power unit, it cannot be denied that the Azerbaijan GP weekend was a wholly uninspired and his most unimpressive outing yet with Cadillac in 2026.
Franco Colapinto: N/A
Grid Position: P9, Race Result: DNF
Baku has not been a happy hunting ground for Colapinto, and the race on Saturday was his most devastating yet.
A misjudgment at the first Safety Car restart not only ended his afternoon but that of his team-mate Pierre Gasly and McLaren’s Lando Norris – the trio running in the top 10 at the time of the incident.
Colapinto has rightly earned himself a grid drop for the race at Sepang, next weekend.
Pierre Gasly: N/A
Grid Position: P7, Race Result: DNF
Gasly was rightly fuming on the team radio comms after his incident with Colapinto. A double DNF for the Enstone-based team, from the points, is yet another major blow to their ambitions of clinching P5 in the Constructors’ from Racing Bulls.
Fernando Alonso: N/A
Grid Position: P21, Race Result: DNF
Alonso had made it a habit to finish in the top 10 at Baku in recent years. But yet another reliability issue for the two-time F1 World Champion meant it was his sixth DNF of the season so far.
Lance Stroll: N/A
Grid Position: P22, Race Result: DNF
It was Stroll’s 11th DNF of the season – a stat neither the Canadian nor the Silverstone-based team would be too proud of. Reliability gremlins and a lack of competitiveness have made 2026 a painfully long season for Aston Martin.
READ MORE – Baku F1 Top 3 defend Franco Colapinto after scathing Lando Norris attack
Discussion about this post