BAKU — George Russell led from start to finish to dominate the Azerbaijan Grand Prix and claim his third win of the season, holding off Max Verstappen by less than two tenths of a second, while Isack Hadjar finished third on his return from a wrist injury that forced him to miss the previous three races.
Russell was faultless across the weekend in Baku. He was fastest on Thursday, produced a stunning qualifying lap to take pole by more than eight tenths and controlled the race before holding off Verstappen under huge pressure at the end. Verstappen, who qualified eighth after genuine power and energy deployment problems, charged through the field, passed Oscar Piastri for second and pushed Russell all the way to the line in an excellent recovery.
Hadjar marked his comeback in style for Red Bull. He out-qualified Verstappen with fourth on the grid, showed excellent pace early in the race and finished on the podium while also playing the team game when Verstappen came through. The Ferrari driver who started second after benefiting from a tow finished fourth as the team lacked the race pace to stay with Russell and the Red Bulls, while Kimi Antonelli endured a weekend of two halves — crashing out in Q1 but recovering from 16th on the grid to fifth despite picking up floor damage, cutting his championship lead over Mercedes team-mate Russell from 81 points to 66. The other Ferrari finished sixth in both qualifying and the race after its run plan left him without a tow.
Further back, Arvid Lindblad recovered impressively after crashing in practice and starting 15th to steal seventh from Esteban Ocon by the tiniest of margins at the finish, a result that helped limit the fallout from his Turn One contact with his Racing Bulls team-mate. Ocon drove a strong race from outside the top 10 to take eighth for Haas, with his team-mate also scoring after narrowly missing Q3 despite contact with Antonelli at the first restart. Carlos Sainz recovered from as low as 19th to grab the final point for Williams after a five-place grid penalty for failing to slow sufficiently for yellow flags had cost him ninth in qualifying, while Nico Hulkenberg recovered to 11th for Audi after its big upgrade failed to translate into qualifying pace. Alpine endured a costly second restart when Franco Colapinto's enormous lock-up wiped out team-mate Pierre Gasly — who had qualified seventh — and Lando Norris, while Aston Martin left Baku without either car reaching the finish after mechanical retirements for both drivers. The result follows Russell's pace-setting run in Baku FP1 where he topped Verstappen as Antonelli hit trouble.