Baku: All the key moments from Azerbaijan

Russell dominated the weekend, topping every session and claiming the victory on Saturday. He grabbed pole position by eight tenths and led the race from lights to flag although he was under pressure by Verstappen late in the race after a safety car period. Verstappen fell short of the win by just one tenth but ultimately allowed Russell to claim his first grand slam in F1 and his third win of the season.

This means Russell cuts the gap to championship rival and teammate Kimi Antonelli to 66 points after he qualified down in 16^th and climbed to 5^th in the race. Importantly, Russell has found some much needed momentum on the streets of Azerbaijan.

Verstappen’s performance was impressive. He qualified down in 8^th with several issues but quickly climbed to the front of the pack on Saturday. He moved past Oscar Piastri for 2^nd on the safety car restart and pushed Russell to the end, leaving the Dutchman still searching for his first win of 2026.

Red Bull teammate Isack Hadjar rounded off the podium much to the teams delight. He had missed the last three rounds due to a wrist injury but immediately qualified fourth and grabbed a podium on his return. He allowed Verstappen through early in the race to allow him to take Piastri, but later on in the Grand Prix the Australian locked up into Turn 1 which handed Hadjar third place and his second podium this year.

The race was relatively boring until a safety car period following Alex Albon locking up at Turn 6 and making head on contact with the barrier. This started a string of chaotic events. Most teams made use of the safety car to pit.

On the restart things went quite wrong for Alpine, McLaren and Racing Bulls. Russell held the lead from Verstappen as further back Franco Colapinto made a massive mistake and had a huge lock up that left him barrelling into the pack ahead of him. This caused him to collide with Alpine teammate Pierre Gasly, who then hit the McLaren of Lando Norris. All three of them had to retire due to the incident and Colapinto has recieved a 5 place grid drop for the next Grand Prix.

As this was happening, Arvid Lindblad tagged the rear of Racing Bulls teammate Liam Lawson, prompting the New Zealander to comment: “I love getting taken out by my teammate. That’s pretty sick.” I think it is pretty safe to say Lawson was unimpressed with the contact but Lindblad has since apologised to him. Lawson did continue the race but only managed to finish 12^th with Lindblad in 7^th.

All of this chaos caused another safety car, and this time the restart was much more well behaved from the drivers. It was after this that Piastri locked up in Turn 1 and lost his podium, in fact things went horribly for McLaren as he rejoined in 15^th. With Lando out of the Grand Prix and Oscar out of the points, the Woking team took home nothing from Baku but a very broken McLaren on a weekend where they brought many new upgrades.

Antonelli benefitted from the chaos though as his slid up to P5 with all the chaos going on around him. Haas also managed to score double points for the first time this season and Williams claimed some much needed points with Carlos Sainz too.

This years Azerbaijan Grand Prix marked the 10^th year of racing around the streets of Baku and it has offered plenty of memorable moments, especially intra-team clashes. Alpine and Racing Bulls lived up to this circuits reputation beautifully.

The Azerbaijan Grand Prix of 2026 offered plenty of drama and wheel-to-wheel racing, and could be a turning point in the championship that we may look back on at the end of the season as the moment momentum changed hands.