Hello welcome to This Azerbaijan Grand Prix, Max Verstappen took a dominant victory in Baku could he become a threat to McLaren’s title hopes? Oscar Piastri has his worst weekend with crashes in qualifying and the race where he crashed on the opening lap, the question will be is the pressure getting to him? But Lando Norris fails to capitalise
General News
The FIA announced Shanghai, Miami and Silverstone will host sprint races along with three new venues in Montreal, Zandvoort and Singapore. Silverstone last held a sprint race when it debuted in 2021 at that race, but the biggest surprise was Singapore a street circuit, which does not automatically make it look like a natural fit for a sprint event.
The announcement confirms the leak in August was correct, and next year’s calendar features twenty-four races and the addition of Madrid which replaces Imola. Madrid will host the Spanish Grand Prix, with Barcelona hosting the Catalan Grand Prix. The race in Barcelona is out of contract at the end of 2026. However, is seeking a rotational deal like Spa signed earlier in the year, others include Germany, but a venue hasn’t been announced, Portimão on the Argrave, Imola which drops off for 2026 and Istanbul which all stepped in during the COVID pandemic.
F1 is also working on finalising plans for a new race in the Thai capital, Bangkok, perhaps from 2028. There have been six sprints each year since 2023 and F1 has not increased that for 2026 because of the added strain on the teams as a consequence of the new chassis and engine regulations that are being introduced.
However, F1 is considering increasing the number of sprint events from 2027 to as many as twelve, which would mean sprints at half the races during the season. But this would need sign off by the F1 Commission, which will, from next year be the eleven teams, Liberty Media and the FIA.
There are also discussions about modifying the format of sprint events, which could include trying out reverse grids. F1 CEO Stefano Domenicali has said that the sprints are attracting bigger audiences and are of more interest to a wider number of people than practice sessions.
Weekend Recap
FP1 saw Lando Norris lead a McLaren one-two with a 42.704 just over three tenths faster than his McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri. Charles Leclerc put his Ferrari third but was over two tenths further behind the two McLarens, but he has been in the mix in Baku since the race’s hiatus in 2020; he was a thousandth faster than the Mercedes of George Russell.
FP2 saw Lewis Hamilton lead a Ferrari one-two; the seven-time champion set a 41.293, putting himself three-quarters of a tenth faster than Leclerc. McLaren’s raw pace was not seen because of the errors made by both drivers on what should have been their fastest laps. George Russell put his Mercedes third as he went four tenths behind Leclerc and a hundredth faster than his teammate Kimi Antonelli.
FP3 saw Norris top the times with 41.299, which put him just under two and a quarter tenths faster than Verstappen. The Red Bull driver managed to split the two McLarens after he went three hundredths faster than Piastri. Hamilton was just over two hundredths further behind.
Qualifying it was Verstappen who took pole with a 41.117, going just under half a second faster than Carlos Sainz. The battle for pole effectively became a one-lap shoot-out after Piastri made a rare mistake and crashed. He was just one of six drivers to be caught out by the gusty and cloudy conditions, and then Norris failed to capitalise on his final attempt going only seventh.
Verstappen went onto dominate the race and take a fourteen and a half second win ahead of Russell. He went long into the race as he built his lead at the front and when he did stop with ten laps to go, his gap was over thirty seconds, which allowed him to rejoin the race in the lead.
Norris couldn’t take advantage of his teammate’s retirement early on. The second McLaren started out of position, after he and Piastri crashed in Q3 on Saturday, he could only manage seventh, two seconds ahead of the Ferrari’s. While Norris made good early progress, he then became stuck behind Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton.
Piastri’s race unravelled before the start of the race; he jumped the start and had to stop again before getting underway. That dropped him to the back of the field into the first corner, and his race came to an end just five corners later. He tried to go for an ambitious move around the outside of Esteban Ocon into Turn Five, but found no grip and slid straight on into the barrier
McLaren
Oscar Piastri says McLaren is “very aligned” on their approach to racing in the title fight between him and team-mate Lando Norris. The Australian said he “trusted” the team in the wake of discussions following the events of the Italian Grand Prix, where Piastri was asked to hand second place to Norris after a pit-stop problem for the Briton.
Ahead of this weekend when the team could mathematically seal the constructors at the earliest point in a season, Piastri has a thirty-one-point lead over Norris. Piastri told BBC News on Thursday, “A highly talked about moment. We’ve clarified a lot of things, and we know how we’re going to go racing moving forward. What’s happened is done.”
“We’ve had a lot of discussions about how we want to go racing, and a lot of that is to stay for us. If we give out that info, we become very easy targets to pick off because everyone knows what we’re going to do. It is all very aligned, but it stays in-house.”
Piastri said McLaren’s decision to reverse the order of the cars was made because of the team’s sequence of decisions leading up to the pit stops. Norris had had been the lead McLaren all race, but the team decided to stop Piastri first rather than Norris, against normal convention.
Piastri’s stop went cleanly, but Norris lost four seconds at his because of a problem fitting his left front wheel. That led to Norris losing second place. Because the team had decided to stop in an unusual order, McLaren decided the right thing to do was to restore the natural order of the race, even though they had agreed beforehand that a pit-stop problem was a natural event of racing that would not necessarily lead to such a call.
Piastri added, “From Monza, there was another factor outside of the slow pit stop, being the order we pitted in. That was a contributing factor to why we swapped. That one I’m happy to talk about because it happened. We can’t plan for every scenario but we are very aligned and I respect the team’s decisions and trust they will do their best to make the right one.
Following practice, Norris believed that his costly error in FP2 put him on the back foot for the rest of the weekend. Norris was fastest in FP1, but finish tenth following contact at Turn Four, which ripped out the left-rear track rod in his MCL39 and brought an early end to his session.
Norris was left rueing the incident and how it ended his opportunities to build up confidence around Baku, with Pirelli having brought its softest range of slick tyres this weekend. We know that confidence is so important in Baku, and they need to be on it this weekend because you need to be on the limit to get the most out of the lap.
He said after practice, “A costly one, especially here. I was feeling good until then. I’d rather have this and push and find the limits than not push at all. So yeah, annoying, but I would have liked to get some high fuel laps in, especially on these tyres, the softer compound compared to last year. But it is what it is and I’ll have to make up for it.”
Before the problems in FP2, in FP1 Norris led Piastri by over three tenths and they were looking like the team to beat, though Ferrari weren’t that far behind. This means that going into qualifying, Norris was expecting a strong challenge, not only from Ferrari but also from Red Bull too.
Piastri was still positive after both Friday practice sessions, though he missed much of the FP1 action due to an issue with the Mercedes power unit on his McLaren. Piastri said, “A bit tricky, just a bit up and down. I think the pace is there, it’s just not the easiest to get the most out of it at the moment, so that’s probably the main thing.”
“We tried a few things in FP2, I’m sure we’ll look back and see what we can change for tomorrow, but I think it’s going to be a bit different with tyre choices and stuff like that. So I think there’s still a lot of positives from today, just a few tricky moments.”
Norris says that the team made a strategic error after he failed to take advantage of his teammate and title rival Piastri. Piastri made a rare mistake when he locked up and went into the barrier at Turn Three, but the Englishman was only able to claim seventh as Max Verstappen took pole for Red Bull.
Norris told Sky Sports, “I think it was mistake from my side, from our side, to go out the pit lane first. It couldn’t have been – if there was a yellow flag further back or a red, we would have like the heroes, and everyone else would have looked like losers. Now I kind of look like the loser and them heroes, but it’s the price you pay sometimes around here and the risks you’ve got to take.”
“But it was still spitting a little bit, so I think anyone who was further back, just (had) more grip. Just a decision that didn’t work out in the end. Something we’ll review and try to do better next time. We just made the wrong decision. We’ll punch ourselves about it now, but it easily could have gone our way.”
Norris went into the race looking to take advantage after his retirement and Piastri’s win in Zandvoort, as well as other opportunities to make major inroads over the remainder of the season.
Piastri’s position at the top of the championship has been built upon his remarkable consistency, with his only mistake of note this year having come in hugely challenging wet conditions at the season-opener in Australia. So it was a big surprise when he found the barrier.
He added, “I think I just braked a little bit late. I’ve not seen any data, but that’s normally what happens when you end up locking a brake, it’s a bit late. Disappointing obviously, I felt like the car was in a good place, but a disappointing way to end.”
Norris and Piastri played down McLaren’s hopes of fighting back for victory on Sunday, with the Brit claiming Red Bull has too much pace to be caught.
Piastri took full responsibility for his crash on the opening lap, which allowed his teammate to close by six points in the championship. After his qualifying crash left him ninth, at the start the car went into anti-stall which caused him to jump the start while then trying to gain positions’s he tired to go around the outside at Turn Five, when he crashed.
He said, “I think just ultimately, I misjudged the grip level. Probably a lot of that’s from dirty air, but I know better than that — to expect the lack of grip. I’m certainly not blaming it on anything else. It was two simple errors on my behalf that I caused today.”
Piastri said there was no obvious reason for him having two accidents in as many days, but took some solace from his pure performance during the weekend. Adding, “You’re never going to feel amazing after a weekend like this, but ultimately I felt like the pace has still been good this weekend. I think it’s rare that I have so many executional errors, so very much focused on putting that behind me.”
All drivers have bad weekends but most of his championship campaign has been built on not making mistakes and taking advantage of Norris’s as well as having a cool head, a few races ago he was delivering weekend after weekend. You will see in the coming days questions whether the pressure of fighting for the championship has started getting to him, and that could hand Norris the advantage having fought Verstappen last year.
Norris dismissed the suggestion that he failed to close the gap to Piastri after the Australian retired and a four-second pit stop. The Englishman finished seventh, and that means he is now a Grand Prix win behind his teammate with ten points scoring opportunities remaining over the next seven weekends.
Norris is therefore still positive, having gained six points on his rival, pointing out it could have been much worse as the season approaches its final seven rounds. He said, “I’m doing the best I can in every race. If you look at that, every race I finished second or worse this year was an opportunity lost. I don’t really care how people look at it.
“Of course, I needed to do better yesterday, but we went out first. This was just our decision, and we paid the price for that. I could have done that. I also could have ended up against the wall and gone long and something worse happened. I felt like I was close to maximising today. It didn’t maybe look like it from the outside, but we struggled with the pace.”
All weekend to me it has felt like McLaren were in the mix, but Red Bull in Verstappen had slightly more consistent pace, and we have seen at a couple of races that they have had to work for it. Going to Singapore, yes very different conditions and not quite as fast, they might need to be wary of Verstappen and they can’t make the mistakes.
Ferrari
Lewis Hamilton went into the weekend saying he was “optimistic” he can end his podium duck in the final eight Grands Prix of the 2025 season, but says a win is “far-fetched”. Though Hamilton won the sprint in Shanghai, he is yet to stand on a podium in a Grand Prix and has always finished on the podium at least once since his debut in 2007, with 2022 and 2023 were the only seasons he failed to win a Grand Prix.
In Zandvoort and Monza, he significantly closed the gap to his to teammate Charles Leclerc. Asked about his chances of ending the year with a podium or victory, he said, “A win is a bit far-fetched considering I’ve been sixth, seventh and eighth for most of the season. I would love to get a podium for the team at some stage, Charles has had five of them.”
“I feel optimistic coming into the weekend. I feel like I’ve found a couple of things and now I need to work on extracting them. So I really hope that this weekend can be the start of that.” After Monza last time out, Leclerc stated Baku, Singapore at the end of this month and Las Vegas in November are Ferrari’s best chances to be close to McLaren, who can seal the Constructors’ Championship this weekend if they outscore Ferrari by at least nine points.
Leclerc went into this weekend having taken five poles in five qualifying sessions, including sprint qualifying in 2023, around the streets of Baku. Going into this weekend he said, “I still have this feeling, but mostly based on many years coming here, and most of the time we were not the favourites on paper, then we ended up having pole.”
“But that doesn’t mean we can, we can win on Sunday. Pole position puts you in the best possible place to start the race but that doesn’t necessarily mean that we will have the race pace. That’s what we’ve been lacking in the past years. I don’t have a big hope that this year is going to be significantly different.”
In Friday practice, the upward trend continued with Hamilton declaring he and Ferrari are “really starting to see the progress come through” in what has been a mixed season so far. In FP2, he was fastest three-quarters of a tenth faster than Leclerc, and in recent races to me it feels that he has been on the same level as his teammate.
Put to him that it was a particularly positive day, amid a rollercoaster first campaign with the Scuderia, Hamilton replied: “It really has [been] – thank the Lord! It wasn’t so positive [early on]… I would say [FP1] was a bit of a mess. We made some changes going into [FP2] and the brakes finally were working perfectly. I was able to really make some big advantages in terms of gaining on the brakes.”
“This is a circuit where you have to have mega confidence on the brakes, and I had some problems with the brakes. Also, every track I’m going to is the first time driving the Ferrari at that circuit, so acclimatising to that is not easy.”
He added, “I’m really happy to see the progress and it just goes to show the direction we’ve been going as a team. I’m really, really grateful for everyone’s patience and everyone pushing so hard, because we’re really starting to see the progress come through.”
Meanwhile Leclerc believed going into qualifying that Ferrari could be in the mix, but that depended on how much McLaren had left to show which he was convinced they world. Pushed on what might be possible as the weekend develops, Leclerc signed off: “I don’t think there’s a battle for the win for now, but never say never. I think in 2021 and in many Qualifyings here I felt like it wasn’t possible, and at the end we kind of made it. I’ll keep my hopes high, but it looks unlikely.”
Come qualifying it was a nightmare for Ferrari, despite Hamilton setting the pace in Q1 he found himself with a “big shock” as he was knocked out in Q2. In final practice the seven time champion was fourth behind the McLaren’s and Max Verstappen, however n the chaos of qualifying Hamilton could only go twelfth.
Asked to reflect on his session, and whether with hindsight he might have taken a different approach with his tyre strategy, Hamilton said: “Yeah, for sure. Firstly, we would have done what everyone else did and have three [sets of] mediums going into P3, then into Qualifying, we would have had three mediums, and we should have used a medium in Q2.
“That’s what everyone else did. We knew that it was quicker… I can’t tell you why we didn’t end up using it, but we’ll take it internally. There’s been lots of progress.” While teammate Leclerc made it into Q3, he failed to set a time becoming another victim of Baku’s walls.
The four-time pole sitter was again frustrated with his weekend, adding “It’s been an extremely difficult weekend overall for me. it’s been a bit of a pain from the beginning of the weekend, struggling with the balance of the car.”
“I changed quite a lot the car going into Qualifying, which seemed to be better, but unfortunately we couldn’t make the medium work anymore. We started to struggle massively in bringing the medium [up] to temperature, then I did this mistake which obviously cost us a lot. Not much more to add.”
After the race Leclerc revealed that he struggled with a power unit issue during the opening phases. The Ferrari driver started tenth but then found it difficult to cut through a tight midfield pack despite taking an offset strategy. He said, “Yeah, I think it was a bit of a roll of the dice to get the right strategy today. I mean, the medium-hard or hard-medium was kind of the same. I mean, it was obviously the same on paper.”
“Then you will just hope that you were with the most amount of fast cars on the same strategy, and I ended up with, obviously, Liam, which was very strong in the straight, very strong in the last sector, and very difficult to overtake, even on the cars that had reverse strategy, and I got stuck behind him the whole race.”
Leclerc was frustrated that his mistake in qualifying meant that he couldn’t perform aat the level he wanted too. Suggesting that their weakness is whenever its cold and they couldn’t get the tyres to work.
We didn’t have time to edit in reaction to Russell’s second place.
Red Bull
Motorsport adviser Helmut Marko believes the teams turn around at Monza has unlocked the potential to succeed at its other weaker circuits on the 2025 calendar. Max Verstappen’s win two weeks ago, a year on from Red Bull’s worse defeat of the season, has offered a breakthrough.
Under new team principal Laurent Mekies, Red Bull has placed a bigger emphasis on driver input after having been led astray by its simulation tools to cure the 2025 car’s balance issues, with Verstappen’s insistence on running a lower downforce set-up in Monza a prime example.
Verstappen’s third win of the 2025 season is considered the most pivotal for Red Bull because overcoming its Monza weaknesses has now opened up possibilities for the remainder of the year, according to team advisor Helmut Marko. The high speed and downforce nature of Baku, going into this weekend caused many to expect they would be in the mix.
Marko told Servus TV on Monday, “For Baku, the fast circuits, I’m very optimistic. I am hopeful for Singapore, the only race we didn’t win so far. Normally on slow circuits [we struggle], but I believe now everything is possible in this period. I believe that with the speed we’ve shown, we should hopefully be able to compete on our own merit at almost every circuit.”
“Singapore would be special, it’s the only race we’ve never won. But maybe it’ll work out there too. We’re still fine-tuning and refining things. If we can keep improving like this, that would be fantastic. The championship is gone, but a few more wins would be very nice.”
Two weeks ago, Verstappen had a revised floor and his teammate Yuki Tsunoda received them for this weekend. However Marko confirmed that the team were running out of upgrades as it shifted its focus to next seasons regulation change.
Verstappen said following the dramatic qualifying that “you just have to send it,” the dutchman took pole after going just under half a second faster than ahead of Carlos Sainz. He said, “It was difficult to get your lap together because most of the time your tyres are not really ready, or a red flag happens. Especially Q3 with a bit of rain around, it was a very difficult session. On the final lap, you just have to send it.
“I wasn’t even on the best tyres that I wanted but because of all the red flags, we basically ran out of tyres. I’m very happy so far with how the weekend is going because I think from FP1 we were not too bad, and we just kept on improving a tiny amount and then we were there in Qualifying. That’s of course where it matters.”
The Dutchman took his sixth pole of the season, and with the McLarens out of position on the grid and slower cars immediately behind in Sainz’s Williams and Liam Lawson’s Racing Bulls, Verstappen was optimistic on his chances of another victory. but he warned that it would be a long race and tyres were tough as they were a step softer than last year.
Yuki Tsunoda had his best qualifying of the season and started the race from sixth, but he believed that more might have been possible. He said, “I take it as a positive. P6 is the highest position I’ve ever taken at Red Bull. This kind of Qualifying, anything can go wrong so obviously I’m not really happy with the Q3 run but at the same time, P6 I’ll take it and looking forward to tomorrow.”
Verstappen said it was “fantastic” to take back-to-back wins after controlling the race from the start and taking a fourteen-second win. He lead from pole and, after an early Safety Car restart, slowly pulled away from Carlos Sainz and then George Russell, the pair completing the podium.
He said, “I think this weekend has been incredible for us.Of course, last [F1] weekend was already great, but for us to win here again is just fantastic. I think also in the race, the car was working really well on both of the compounds [of tyre].”
“We had clean air all of the time and then you could look after your tyres and it was pretty straightforward. Of course, it’s not easy around here. It was very windy today, so the car was always moving around a lot, but of course, I’m incredibly happy with this performance.”
I think it was a good weekend which we knew was a possibility given how strong he was when he took that win in Monza two weeks ago, but as he admitted himself, a late title challenge looks to be difficult.
Tsunoda meanwhile converted his strongest qualifying into his strongest race for Red Bull finishing sixth having applied late pressure to Racing Bulls driver Liam Lawson in the closing stages. He said, “Happy with it, especially the pace I showed today is a lot different to other race weekends. I think I got supported a lot from the team to change massively like this internally and also the efforts I put in over the weeks, definitely shows some improvement there.”
Mercedes
Following practice, Kimi Antonelli believed that Mercedes can “be in the fight,” after finishing fourth just under a hundredth behind teammate George Russell in FP2. The Mercedes duo were best of the rest behind the Ferraris of Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc.
Antonelli was only able to finish P11 quickest in the opening one-hour session but admitted that he was aiming to build up gradually around the unforgiving circuit, not helped by almost half the session being lost to a lengthy stoppage for a track inspection. He said on Friday evening “I think it was a pretty positive day. I was building up, taking it a bit easier today as obviously it’s a street circuit and just trying to build my confidence step by step.”
“FP2 felt pretty good, obviously FP1 there was the big interruption so you kind of lose a little bit the rhythm but in FP2, I was able to build lap by lap. There’s still a little bit of work to do, still two, three-tenths to find but I think was a pretty positive day and something we can build on for tomorrow.”
Antonelli enters this weekend under pressure, with CEO and team principal Toto Wolff having publicly criticised his driver’s performance at Monza in the previous race, something Antonelli agreed with during Thursday’s media press conference.
Aston Martin
Fernando Alonso says he is feeling more optimistic about the team prospects heading towards 2026 now that the team “trust the tools that we have in the factory” following some successful upgrades during the 2025 campaign.
Off the back of a challenging start to the season, the team has made steps forward after bringing updates during the European triple header, having regularly scored points in the races since.
When asked during the Italian Grand Prix weekend if the success of these developments had given him even more hope moving into next year and the regulation changes, Alonso responded, “Yeah, definitely. I think to trust the tools that we have in the factory and bring things to the track that actually deliver what was expected from them is obviously a very good thing.”
“We didn’t have that in 2023 and in 2024. So yeah, it’s good to go back to a more normal factory-track kind of correlation and develop the 2026 car next winter knowing that the tools are correct.”
Looking ahead to the rest of the season the two-time champion believed upcoming races could provide opportunities for the team. He believes that they will be in places similar to Budapest and Zandvoort, mentioning Singapore and Interlagos where Aston Martin could do well.
But added, “We will go every weekend to give our maximum, even if it seems difficult. And yeah, we’ll see in Abu Dhabi how many points and which constructor position we have at the end.”
Haas
Ollie Bearman has conceded he must be “really careful” because he is on ten licence points and that puts him two away from a race ban. Bearman who made his debut for Haas a year ago after his predecessor, Kevin Magnussen, in receiving a race ban for racking up twelve points in a twelve-month period, after picking up two for colliding with Carlos Sainz in Monza.
Ironically, it was Magnussen’s previous sanction that granted Bearman his Haas debut, one year ago in Azerbaijan. Bearman said “It’s definitely something that I have to take into account. It’s a shame to be at this point, but I just have to have a few clean races for the next few.”
Penalty points can be awarded alongside other sanctions by the stewards for infractions, and Magnussen is to date the only driver to be banned since the system was implemented in 2014. In a bid to make on-track conduct clearer, a set of Driving Standards Guidelines was created earlier this season.
But the successful overturning by Williams of Carlos Sainz’s penalty in Zandvoort, Bearman felt hard done by with his Monza sanction. Bearman continued, “These guidelines… I feel are quite vague in some areas and quite specific in others. With my incident in Monza, I felt like I was pretty hard done by, but the guidelines state that I don’t deserve any space on the inside in that specific scenario, which, in my view, is a bit harsh. Of course, I’m biased towards myself, but I think a lot of people will agree and say that this was quite a harsh scenario.”
Conceding the difficulty rule makers have in satisfying the drivers, he added, “I think we will never fully be happy with that. It’s really tough to say, honestly, because whatever solution they come up with, I’m sure we’re going to find a new problem with it.
Racing Bulls
Isack Hadjar started the weekend by trying to shut down the rumours about a potential move to Red Bull, while also confirming that he has an idea of where he will be driving next year.
German publication Auto Motor und Sport claimed that Hadjar would be driving for Red Bull in 2026 and Red Bull junior Arvid Lindblad would be signed by Racing Bulls. The remaining seat would then be filled by either Yuki Tsunoda or Liam Lawson. Asked about his future he said, “I don’t care. I really don’t care, you know, I had like five days off at home, I had other things to do than scrolling on Instagram.”
Hadjar has impressed during his rookie F1 season so far. He secured his first podium with a third in Zandvoort and has scored thirty-eight points, placing him ninth in the drivers’ championship.
He previously said when asked about a move to Red Bull, he said, “At the start of the year, you were asking me if I was feeling ready to jump into the Red Bull this year, and the answer is still ‘no’. I don’t see the point of doing that right now. But ’26 is a different question because it’s a brand-new start for the team, there won’t be this talk of a ‘second car thing’. This won’t be a thing because it’s a brand-new car for everyone.”
Hadjar revealed he had hydraulic issues on the way to the gridbut the team was able to make the necessary repairs on the grid. Hadjar lost two positions to Charles Leclerc and Lando Norris after the restart despite initially overtaking Norris at the race start.
He said, “Yeah, I mean, it’s a shame because I felt good on the medium, on the very first lap I overtook Lando. I felt good and I did a repeat of yesterday on that kerb and I lost two places straight away to Charles and Lando. So yeah, it was frustrating and then we fell back, but on the hard we were really quick and we were catching the guys ahead.”
Williams
Williams has successfully overturned Carlos Sainz’s ten-second time penalty for his collision with Liam Lawson. The Spaniard was given a ten-second time penalty and two penalty points at the race in Zandvoort at the end of August for making contact with Racing Bulls’ Liam Lawson when battling for the points.
Both drivers received punctures and Sainz was stunned when told about the penalty, labelling it as a “complete joke” after the race, which he finished thirteenth. The team lodged the appeal on 4th September to remove the points from his licence. Following the hearing the decision was made to rescind the ruling.
However, the time penalty Sainz served during the racing, the two penalty points that were applied to his super licence have been removed, the result of the race cannot be changed.
Williams satisfied the requirement to provide a new, significant element that was not available to the stewards at the time of their original decision, by providing footage from a 360-degree camera on Sainz’s car.
The decision read: “The Stewards are satisfied that the collision was caused by a momentary loss of control by Car 30 (Lawson). However, in the Stewards’ assessment, no driver was wholly or predominantly to blame for that collision. Car 55 (Sainz) contributed to the incident by taking the risk to drive close to, and on the outside of, Car 30 when Car 55 had no right to room there and there was a real possibility that, if the collision had not occurred where it did, Car 55 would run out of track at the exit and/or a collision would have occurred at the exit for which the Driver of Car 55 would likely be predominantly if not wholly to blame.”
Shortly after the decision was confirmed, Williams released a statement of their own expressing both gratefulness and frustration at the process. The statement said: “We are grateful to the stewards for reviewing Carlos’ Zandvoort penalty and are pleased they have now decided he was not at fault, and that this was a racing incident.”
“While it is frustrating that our race was compromised by the original decision, mistakes are part of motor racing, and we will continue to work constructively with the FIA to improve stewarding processes and review the racing rules for the future.”
Well things got better for Sainz as he struggled to describe “how good this feels” after clinching a stunning first podium with Williams. The Spaniard converted second on the grid into third, he lost out in a race long fight with Russell who eventually passed him when he made his pit stop.
He said after the race, “Honestly, I cannot describe how happy I am or how good this feels. It tastes even better than the first-ever podium that I did. We’ve been fighting hard all year and, finally today, we just proved that when we have the speed.”
“We’ve had it all year, and when everything comes together, we can do some amazing things together. We nailed the race – not one mistake, and we managed to beat a lot of cars that, yesterday, I wasn’t expecting to beat.”
This season has been up and down and Sainz hasn’t scored points since Montreal, due to various factors and this is a big result for Williams, we have seen flashes of pace from Williams but we haven’t seen them get it together in the race.
Cadillac
Cadillac team principal Gramme Lowdon has announced its operation will be run from Silverstone while it completes the teams US base in Indianapolis. The American team will make its deubt as the eleventh team in Melbourne in march, with its opperatons based n Silverstone and headquartered in city of Fishers, Hamilton, Indiana and a temporary wind tunnel base in Cologne.
He told the Beyond the Grid podcast: “That [Fishers] is a nearly half million square foot development, brand new build just for F1. It’s going to have a whole bunch of things surrounding it as well, which I think will be very interesting for the fans.”
“That’s headquarters and the bulk of the car will be manufactured there over time. But again, you can’t build a factory, we got an entry in March of this year, you can’t build a factory, hire all the people, put all the machines in, and then manufacture components to F1 standard, which is like aerospace standard, and be on the grid in Melbourne with that car.”
He announced Cadillac also has exclusive use of Toyota’s wind tunnel in Germany, plus a power unit base in North Carolina as it gears up to race with in-house engines from 2029. Until then it will be a Ferrari customer outfit but nonetheless, the organisation has been on an aggressive hiring spree of “over 120” members of staff after the 2025 summer shutdown.
Facts and stats (F1.com)
- Today was Max Verstappen’s sixth grand slam (win / pole / fastest lap / led every lap) of his F1 career. He is now tied with Lewis Hamilton for second on the all-time list behind only Jim Clark (eight).
- George Russell’s P2 for Mercedes was his seventh podium finish this season. It was Mercedes’ best finish in Baku since 2019. Russell previously finished third in the 2022 and 2024 Azerbaijan Grands Prix.
- Carlos Sainz, with P3, becomes the second driver after Alain Prost to finish on the podium for McLaren, Ferrari and Williams. Williams’ last podium in a full-length race was in Azerbaijan 2017
- With Lando Norris in seventh and Oscar Piastri failing to finish, McLaren scored their fewest points in a race (six) since Las Vegas 2023 (two). It means McLaren missed an opportunity to clinch the constructors championship today.
- Qualifying saw a new record set with six red flags and lasting for nearly two hours, excluding when qualifying has been abandoned midway through. Not far off last years postponed Sao Paulo GP Qualifying, and Imola in 2023.
Results Summary
Pole Position |
Max Verstappen
Red Bull – Honda RBPT 01:41.117 |
|||||
Podium |
||||||
Po |
Name |
Nat |
Team |
Time |
Points |
|
| 1 | Max Verstappen | NED | Red Bull – Honda RBPT | 01:33:26.408 | 25 | |
| 2 | George Russell | GBR | Mercedes | +00:14.509 | 18 | |
| 3 | Carlos Sainz | ESP | Williams – Mercedes | +00:19.199 | 15 | |
| Fastest
Lap |
Max Verstappen | NED | Red Bull – Honda RBPT | 01:43.388 | ||
Championship Standings
Drivers’ Championship |
Constructors Championship |
|||
Po |
Name |
Points |
Constructor |
Points |
| 1 | Oscar Piastri | 324 | McLaren – Mercedes | 623 |
| 2 | Lando Norris | 299 | Mercedes | 290 |
| 3 | Max Verstappen | 255 | Ferrari | 286 |
| 4 | George Russell | 212 | Red Bull – Honda RBPT | 272 |
| 5 | Charles Leclerc | 165 | Williams – Mercedes | 101 |
