A Tenth of a Second in Baku: How Russell Survived Two Safety Cars and Verstappen

Baku: a circuit built for safety cars

The Baku City Circuit is two circuits stitched together. One half is a flat-out 2.2 km run along the seafront, where cars spend a long time at full throttle and top speed. The other half is a tight street section through the old city, with concrete walls right beside the track and the famously narrow Turn 8 by the castle. That combination is why the Azerbaijan Grand Prix so rarely finishes the way it starts. On a street circuit with almost no run-off, any mistake ends in the wall, and a car in the wall means a safety car.

For strategists that changes the maths. A pit stop normally costs around 20 seconds of track position. Under a safety car it costs roughly half that, because the whole field is running slowly. At Baku, the plan you start with is only a first draft. The real question is who has the tyre life and the track position to react when the neutralisation comes. On Saturday it came twice.

The narrow old-city section, with the medieval walls on one side and concrete barriers on the other. There’s no run-off here · Photo: XPB Images

George Russell’s Mercedes: fastest over one lap by 0.837 seconds, and then just fast enough over 51 · Photo: XPB Images

Qualifying: Russell's 0.837-second statement, Antonelli in the wall

Mercedes has had the best one-lap car all year, but Baku qualifying still stood out. Russell took his fifth pole of 2026 with a 1:42.526, a massive 0.837 seconds clear of Charles Leclerc's Ferrari. Russell called it the biggest margin of his career. Oscar Piastri was only a thousandth behind Leclerc in third, with Isack Hadjar fourth, Lando Norris fifth and Lewis Hamilton sixth. Max Verstappen, who had topped final practice, called his session a "disaster" and qualified only eighth.

The bigger news was the car that didn't make it through. Championship leader Kimi Antonelli hit the wall in Q1 and started 16th. Mercedes had the fastest car on the grid and a teammate at the back. For Russell, 81 points behind before the weekend, it was the best chance he has had in months to cut into the gap.

The opening stint: Russell escapes, Red Bull carves forward

Russell got away cleanly and led by 1.2 seconds after one lap. Behind him the fight was all about Red Bull. Hadjar and Verstappen quickly started pressuring Leclerc and Norris. By lap 7 Verstappen was past his teammate, with the Red Bull pit wall telling Hadjar that "race time is priority" for Verstappen. In other words, Hadjar was told not to hold him up.

Aston Martin's weekend was over almost before it started. Lance Stroll was told to stop the car with a technical problem on lap 9, and Fernando Alonso parked in the pits on lap 22, giving the team a double mechanical retirement. Up front Russell steadily pulled away, building a lead of around ten seconds. He brushed the wall at Turn 15 on lap 18 but reported no damage. At Baku, that kind of small touch often ends a race, and Russell got away with it.

McLaren and Ferrari along Baku’s tree-lined streets. McLaren qualified third and fifth and left with nothing · Photo: RaceFans / McLaren

Safety car one: Albon's crash deletes a ten-second lead

Just past the lap-30 mark, Alex Albon went nose-first into the barrier at Turn 5 and brought out the first safety car. Russell's lead went from about ten seconds to nothing. Most of the front-runners pitted for cheaper tyre changes. Nico Hülkenberg briefly stayed out, but he pitted soon after. When racing restarted, Russell had to build his lead all over again, and he did pull clear once more.

Safety car two: the Turn 1 pile-up

The second neutralisation came at the next restart. Franco Colapinto locked up braking for Turn 1 at the end of that long straight, hit his Alpine teammate Pierre Gasly, and the chain reaction also collected Lando Norris. All three retired. That meant a double DNF for Alpine and a zero for the reigning world champion. The debris also caught Antonelli, who had climbed to around eighth. His Mercedes picked up floor damage that he carried to the finish.

From an engineering point of view, Turn 1 at Baku is one of the hardest braking zones of the season to get right on a restart. Cars arrive at close to top speed, but brakes and tyres have been cooling during the safety car laps. Every driver is also trying to out-brake the car ahead to gain a place. A lock-up there has nowhere to go.

Piastri's lock-up: McLaren's day collapses

McLaren's afternoon got worse at the following restart. Defending from Hadjar into Turn 1, Oscar Piastri locked up and fell down the order. He finished 14th, out of the points. McLaren left Baku with nothing from a car that had qualified third and fifth. In the constructors' championship they stay on 306 points while Ferrari and Red Bull both scored heavily.

Max Verstappen climbed from eighth to second and finished one tenth short of his first win of 2026 · Photo: via F1 media

The final laps: Verstappen closes, Bottas crashes, a tenth decides it

After the final restart it was a straight fight between two drivers. Verstappen had already made up six places from eighth on the grid and was still looking for his first win of 2026. He attacked Russell every lap, and the gap moved between a few tenths and a full second. Russell's straight-line speed along the seafront was enough to keep him ahead, but with little margin to spare.

Then on the last lap Valtteri Bottas crashed his Cadillac at Turn 15. Russell had to lift, and Verstappen got right up behind him. The line came too soon for the Red Bull. Russell won by 0.1 seconds, his third win of the season. Hadjar finished 10.7 seconds further back in third, giving Red Bull its first double podium since 2024. After the race, the stewards noted that Verstappen had not followed a Race Director instruction, but they took no further action.

Russell with the winner’s trophy: his third victory of the season and 15 points back from his teammate · Photo: via F1 media

Verstappen and Hadjar: Red Bull’s first double podium since the 2024 Chinese Grand Prix · Graphic: FIA / Formula 1

Antonelli's damage limitation: 16th to 5th

For the championship, Antonelli's drive may matter as much as Russell's win. He dropped to 17th on the opening lap and was then damaged in the Colapinto crash. Even so, he fought his way forward, passing Hamilton for fifth with eight laps to go and finishing about four seconds off the podium. Starting 16th with the fastest car usually means a big points loss. Antonelli kept it to 15 points.

Leclerc converted his front-row start into fourth. Hamilton was sixth after a compromised afternoon. Arvid Lindblad was seventh for Racing Bulls, Haas scored with both cars through Esteban Ocon and Oliver Bearman, and Carlos Sainz took the last point in tenth.

Championship arithmetic: 81 becomes 66

Russell's 25 points against Antonelli's 10 cut the gap at the top from 81 points to 66. That is still a big lead, but it is the first real dent in it for some time. Verstappen's 18 points take him to 163. Hadjar's 15 move him to 86. Mercedes now leads the constructors' championship by 160 points.

Race narrative, lap by lap

Podium & results

The Baku podium: Verstappen, Russell and Hadjar. Two Red Bulls either side of the Mercedes · Photo: via F1 media

The pit wall takeaway

Baku showed that a big one-lap advantage doesn't guarantee an easy race. Mercedes had nearly a second in hand on Friday. On Saturday, two safety cars cut the race into three short sprints, and Russell had to win each restart against a Red Bull that was clearly at its strongest in race trim. Verstappen gained six places and finished a tenth from the win, which suggests Red Bull's race pace is closer to Mercedes than their qualifying pace. With 66 points between the Mercedes teammates and Verstappen's first win of 2026 looking close, the run-in to the end of the season has a lot left to decide.