Formula 1 in Baku
Verstappen wins-Norris can hardly use Piatri-Aus
Updated on September 21, 2025 – 3:10 p.m.Reading time: 3 min.
At the Grand Prix of Azerbaijan, Max Verstappen leaves no doubt about his victory. The World Cup leader experiences a disaster, but its pursuer can only use this.
Max Verstappen has won the Grand Prix of Azerbaijan in a dominant way. The pole site asserted itself at the start and no longer gave the lead over the entire racing distance. In the end, he finished the finish line with more than 14 seconds ahead of Mercedes driver George Russell, who took second place. Carlos Sainz completed the top three in Williams and thus entered an outstanding result for the British racing team.
WM leader Oscar Piatri experienced an afternoon to forget. At first he missed the start and fell back from ninth to the end of the field. A few curves later he braked himself and landed in the route limitation. Teammate and first World Cup followers Lando Norris could only use the failure to a limited extent. As a seventh, he did only six points on Piatri.
Verstappen, on the other hand, reports back quietly in the World Cup fight. With his victories at the last race in Italy and now in Azerbaijan, he caught up with a total of 35 points on Piatri. He is now only 69 points behind the 24 -year -old Australian with seven outstanding Grand Prix.
Dark clouds rose before the start. But it stayed dry. Unlike the competition in front, Verstappen first opted for the hard tires – at the same time the slowest and those who are most difficult to temper. Nevertheless, he got away great, defended his 46th career pole against Sainz and the surprising qualifying third Liam Lawson, once even Red Bull teammate from Verstappen, now with the sister team Racing Bulls.
Also behind it everything went pretty smoothly, just not at the starting place nine. There, Piatri had two ranks behind Norris, after his self-indebted accident in the knockout off. He flinched too early, stopped and was overtaken by a series of rivals.
When trying to work forward again, the otherwise so cool Australian on the accelerator was rejected and drove too quickly into one of the tight curves. The result: he struck with his McLaren. “Oscar, are you okay?” Asked the command stand where team boss Andrea Stella rubbed her eyes. “Yeah”, Piatri answered briefly. It initially remained open whether he will have to expect consequences for his false start for the upcoming race in Singapore. Recordings showed him how he observed the action in Baku on a chair with the legs raised.