BAKU — The Azerbaijan Grand Prix delivered a race of two halves on the streets of Baku, where a mid-race pair of safety cars turned a flat opening act into a full street brawl and left George Russell at the head of the winners' list.
The swing came at the lap 36 restart, when one dab of the brake pedal triggered a melee that instantly doubled the candidates for the losers' column. What had been described as a flavourless main course gave way to an indulgent dessert of incidents after the back-to-back neutralizations bunched the field.
Russell emerged as the clear winner from the chaos, while Baku again underlined its reputation for late drama. The list of winners featured a number of unlikely heroes, with the lap 36 restart reshuffling the order and expanding the tally of losers in the second half.