Baku is never mediocre. It’s either a stunner or a stinker of a race. The streets of Azerbaijan delivered chaos in qualifying, heartbreak for Oscar Piastri, and a dominant masterclass from Max Verstappen that rewrote the record books. Carlos Sainz gave Williams its first podium in years, while Mercedes quietly surpassed Ferrari in the Constructors’ standings. What was deemed McLaren’s chance to seal the WCC title turned into a weekend of missed opportunities — and the championship fight is suddenly alive again.

📊 Qualifying Highlights

After two long and excruciating hours, the 2025 Azerbaijan qualifying session wrapped with the reigning world champion on pole and two unexpected faces besides him. With a record-breaking six red flags that broke up the sessions, all of the drivers were left scrambling for a good, clean lap. Even the highest-profile drivers struggled with the changing weather conditions — Lewis Hamilton was knocked out in Q2, and four-time pole sitter around this circuit, Charles Leclerc, and championship-leader Oscar Piastri both hit the walls in Q3, leaving the pair further down the grid on the fifth row.

In Q3, the teams were faced with two major decisions: Is the C6 soft compound better than its C5 counterpart? Should the cars go out early to get a time on the board or wait for the track to evolve? As the session progressed, the wind was ramping up, and sprinkles of rain hit the track. The early goers, Carlos Sainz of Williams and the two Racing Bulls completed clean laps before the Red Flags were out. As the condition worsened, it looked like Sainz was genuinely going to claim pole position. But the rain gradually came to an end during the time out. The remaining contenders had a final attempt. McLaren’s Lando Norris couldn’t take advantage of his championship rival’s misfortune, and in the end, Max Verstappen did what Max Verstappen does: strung together a flawless lap for pole position, putting nearly half a second on the rest of the field.

🦁 Max Verstappen’s 6th Grand Slam

If qualifying was messy, the race was the exact opposite — at least for Max Verstappen. He gambled starting on the Hards, went long, and executed a perfect Safety Car restart. From pole to the checkered flag, he led every lap and took the fastest lap to complete his sixth career Grand Slam. In doing so, he became the first driver in history to record at least one Grand Slam in five consecutive seasons, and now holds more wins in the ground-effects era than the rest of the grid combined.

For all the talk of Red Bull’s inconsistency in 2025, Baku proved that when Verstappen has a car he likes, he is still untouchable. The floor upgrade introduced in Monza made the RB-21 more stable in low-speed corners. After two perfect back-to-back victories, the Dutchman has now cut Piastri’s lead to 69 points. Whispers about a fifth title no longer sound “impossible”, and Verstappen said he is approaching the rest of the racing calendar on a race-by-race basis, maximizing the machinery he’s got beneath him.

🤯 McLaren’s Messy Weekend

The streets of Baku were brutal to McLaren. Oscar Piastri’s weekend unraveled before it even began: a crash in qualifying set the tone, and on Sunday, he jumped the start, triggered anti-stall, and ended up in the barriers on Lap 1. Baku was Piastri’s most dominant drive in 2024, and for a driver who has been the definition of consistency and calm-headed, it was an uncharacteristic and costly error.

Lando Norris wasn’t able to pick up the slack either. The British driver only managed to qualify in P7 after making a few mistakes on his flying lap. A sluggish restart after the Safety Car saw him lose position to Leclerc, and once trapped behind Yuki Tsunoda, he never found a way through. To make matters worse, a slow pit stop left him finishing right where he started. What was crazy, though, was that Piastri technically lost fewer points with his DNF and Norris’ P7 than had Norris finished P1 and him slotted in P2.

This is the first weekend of the season where everything went wrong for McLaren — driver error and pit stop fiasco ruined the race, where they could have sealed the Constructors’ Championship. With 7 more races to go, can McLaren bounce back and reclaim their dominance?

🎉 Carlos Sainz’s First Williams Podium

Despite McLaren’s clear advantage over the rest of the field, we have seen many surprise podium finishers this season. And this week, it was Carlos Sainz. The Spaniard is no stranger to a top 3 finish, racking up 27 of them during his McLaren and Ferrari stints, but it was his first one since joining Williams. After a season marked by misfortune and near misses, Sainz finally delivered what we expected from him. Sainz qualified brilliantly on Saturday, holding his nerve while chaos unfolded, and on Sunday, he kept up the pace with cars around him. He kept his nose clean when others faltered, managed his tires to perfection, and secured a result that felt like both a personal redemption and a sign of Williams’ growing comeback. Williams now sits comfortably in P5 of the Constructors’ Championship. For a team rebuilding its identity, this podium is just what they needed for all the hard work they put in.

🔛 Mercedes’ Resurgence

Mercedes also came alive in Baku because of the cooler track conditions that suited their tricky W16. George Russell, who was fighting through illness all weekend, managed his pace and executed the perfect strategy that allowed him to overcut three cars and secure a P2 finish. Kimi Antonelli also delivered a stunning drive filled with bold overtakes and aggressive moves, a strong redemption for his past few underwhelming performances. With both cars in the mix, Mercedes jumped Ferrari to second in the Constructors’ standings. It was, all in all, a very positive weekend for the Silver Arrows. If the team keeps this momentum and avoids further reliability or strategy blunders, they are looking like a strong contender to be the runner-up in this campaign.

🎖️ Winners & Losers

🏆 Winners:

Max Verstappen – Another dominant drive as we only saw his start, pit stop, and crossing the finish line (which is a good thing for him!). With this win, his chance of winning his fifth consecutive title suddenly came alive.

George Russell – Battled with illness all weekend but executed the right strategy flawlessly, bringing Mercedes back to P2 in the Constructors’ Championship.
Carlos Sainz – Everything went right this weekend as he qualified in the front row and kept the pace throughout the race to score his first podium since joining Williams.
Yuki Tsunoda – P6 was not the most exciting result, but it was a faultless and very encouraging weekend for Tsunoda, who held off Norris in the race.
Racing Bulls – Lawson qualified in third and finished in his career-best 5th position. Hadjar also scored some decent points for the team.

❌ Losers:

Oscar Piastri – Scrappy weekend all around for the Australian driver, punished by his own mistakes, he walked away with 0 points.
Lando Norris – Did not capitalize in qualifying or the race to close in on the championship fight, and was unlucky with his pit stop again.
Alex Albon - Poor qualifying performance and messy race execution when his teammate finished on the podium.
Ferrari - Another anonymous weekend for the team in red, Leclerc had ERS issues, but both cars had no pace despite the drivers’ effort to overtake on track.
Haas – Took another strategy gamble and went ultra long on the second stint, but it ultimately did not pay off.

🇸🇬 Looking Ahead: Singapore

We go racing on the most challenging track of the year next week. McLaren will arrive with something to prove after their disastrous Azerbaijan weekend, but Singapore’s extreme weather and high-downforce demands may just play into their favor. The bigger question is Red Bull: Verstappen won both of the low-downforce street circuits, but will the RB-21 behave in the high-downforce Singapore setup? With the championship gap now down to 69 points, the momentum is tilting ever so slightly. If Verstappen manages to win in Singapore, it could be the weekend when the title fight truly reopens.

Verstappen Domination, Piastri Crashout, Sainz Podium: What Happened at The 2025 Azerbaijan Grand Prix