What started as an easy Saturday drive on the streets of Baku, Azerbaijan turned into firefight that George Russell barely won.
On lap 31, Alexander Albon locked up entering turn 5 and drove straight into the wall. This brought out a safety car that effectively ended all pit strategy for the day, as any tire would make it to the end of the race.
On the ensuring restart, it was a mess in which Franco Colapinto locked up entering turn 1 and slammed into his teammate Pierre Gasly and Lando Norris. All three cars couldn’t continue, bringing out another safety car.
But Verstappen was able to get by Oscar Piastri to take second for the second restart, and he hounded Russell for the rest of the race.
On the final lap, Valtteri Bottas hit the wall and got stuck in turn 18. The race director elected not to throw a safety car or VSC, allowing Verstappen to catch Russell napping and close up closer to the Mercedes. Verstappen drafted all the way up to Russell’s rear wing, but couldn’t get by him and had to settle for second.
It was the closest finish in Formula 1 history since the 2002 United States Grand Prix at 0.196 of a second.
“The first half of the race seemed plain sailing,” Russell said, after picking up his first ever Grand Slam, which is leading from start to finish from the pole and scoring the fastest lap. “Safety car restart, when I saw Max behind, I thought it wasn’t going to be easy. He drove incredibly at the end of the race.
“And then, when the yellow flag came out, I lifted off the power, and when I went back, I had no turbo, so I had no power. And Max almost got me at the line. That would have been a real shame but, incredible weekend.”
Isack Hadjar finished third in his return to F1 to make it a double Red Bull podium. Charles Leclerc came home in fourth, while points leader Kimi Antonelli limited the damage by finishing fifth.
Lewis Hamilton finished sixth. Arvid Lindblad finished seventhafter accidently making contact with his teammate Liam Lawson during the Alpine-Norris wreck, with Lawson dropping back and finishing 12th.
Lindblad beat Esteban Ocon at the line by just three hundreths of a second. Oliver Beaman at least made it a Haas eighth-ninth on the day.
Carlos Sainz took the final point on the day by finishing tenth.
Michael has watched NASCAR for over 25 years and has covered it on-and-off for 14.
In addition to Frontstretch he also writes sporadically for his own websites GrandPrixFocus.com and StockCarFocus.com.
A name and email address are required to post a comment. The email address is not publicly visible or shared. Please keep in mind that comments are moderated according to our comment policy.
Comments are listed in order from oldest to newest. Leave a comment