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George Russell survives Baku’s walls, chaos and Max Verstappen

There are race tracks where Formula 1 cars look fast, and then there is Baku, where they look like someone has fired a missile down a city street and hoped it remembers to turn.

The Azerbaijan Grand Prix has always had a knack for turning a seemingly straightforward afternoon into something resembling a particularly expensive demolition derby. Saturday was no different. George Russell started from pole, looked completely in control for much of the race, survived two Safety Car periods, watched a potential podium disappear in a cloud of carbon fiber and, eventually, had to fend off Max Verstappen by the width of a credit card.

Russell won by just 0.196 seconds.

That is not a margin. That’s the sort of distance you get when two shopping carts collide at the supermarket and neither one has the good sense to stop.

For Russell, though, it was a third victory of the 2026 season and the eighth of his Formula 1 career. More importantly, it was a victory that looked completely under control until Baku did what Baku does best and started throwing furniture around the room.

Russell made a clean getaway from pole and immediately began doing the one thing every driver dreams of doing on a Saturday afternoon: disappearing. Oscar Piastri settled into second, with Charles Leclerc behind him, while the two Red Bulls of Max Verstappen and Isack Hadjar began their inevitable march forward.

Russell wasn’t merely leading. He was leaving.

The Mercedes driver eventually built a gap approaching 10 seconds over Piastri, although even he couldn’t entirely enjoy the experience. He brushed the wall at Turn 15 and reported concerns about his tire pressures, which is a fairly effective way of reminding yourself that you are driving a car at 200-plus mph between buildings with approximately six inches of forgiveness on either side.

Behind him, the race was becoming considerably more interesting.

The Red Bulls were making serious progress on the straights, and Verstappen eventually worked his way past Hadjar and then began applying pressure to Piastri. Hadjar had already dispatched Leclerc around the outside at Turn 1 before Verstappen followed him through. The McLaren, meanwhile, wasn’t exactly enjoying the experience, particularly when it came to getting the power down out of Turn 16.

Then Alex Albon decided to introduce himself to the barriers.

On Lap 30, the Williams driver locked up at Turn 6 while battling Haas’ Esteban Ocon and slammed into the wall. Out came the Safety Car, which was precisely what everyone at the front did not need. Russell’s comfortable advantage evaporated, the field bunched up and the strategic calculations suddenly became rather less theoretical.

Red Bull double-stacked Verstappen and Hadjar, while Russell retained the lead. It was all perfectly civilized.

For roughly five minutes.

At the restart, Verstappen finally got past Piastri for second. Further back, Franco Colapinto locked up approaching Turn 1 and collected his Alpine teammate Pierre Gasly. Gasly then had nowhere to go and collected Lando Norris.

Three cars. One corner. Zero happy people.

The resulting second Safety Car transformed the race again. Russell still led, but the enormous advantage he’d spent the first half of the afternoon building had effectively been thrown into the Caspian Sea. Verstappen was now sitting right behind him, and if there is one person you don’t want appearing in your mirrors after you’ve spent 50 laps driving around a concrete canyon, it’s Max Verstappen.

And then Piastri threw away what should have been a podium.

Under pressure from Hadjar, the McLaren driver locked up into Turn 1 and spun, falling from third place to the back of the field. A race that had looked like a potentially huge result for McLaren suddenly became another exercise in collecting emotional damage. Piastri eventually recovered to 14th.

While all of this was happening, Kimi Antonelli was quietly performing one of the afternoon’s more remarkable drives.

The Mercedes driver had started 16th after his qualifying accident and had dropped as far as 17th on the opening lap. By the closing stages, however, he had picked his way through the wreckage and was running fifth. He even passed Lewis Hamilton with eight laps remaining.

That’s less a comeback and more finding the express elevator after spending the morning trapped in the basement.

At the front, however, there was only one story left to tell.

Russell had Verstappen breathing down his neck, and the Red Bull driver was not there to admire the view. The pair were separated by only a few tenths as they threaded their way through the final laps of Baku, with Verstappen probing for an opportunity and Russell doing everything possible to ensure the opportunity remained theoretical.

 

Then came the yellow flag for Valtteri Bottas, who had put his Cadillac into the barriers.

Russell lifted.

And when he got back on the throttle, he discovered that his Mercedes had temporarily decided it was finished participating in the internal-combustion portion of the afternoon.

“I lifted off the power, and when I went back, I had no turbo, so then I had no power,” Russell explained afterward.

This would normally be considered bad.

At Baku, it is considerably worse.

Verstappen had one final chance. On the run to the line, the Red Bull pulled alongside, turning the final few hundred yards into a drag race between two cars that had spent the entire afternoon trying not to hit anything.

Russell held his line.

The Mercedes crossed the line first.

By 0.196 seconds.

“I was trying everything that I have available,” Verstappen said afterward, explaining that he had even been brushing the wall at Turn 16 as he searched for a way past. He believed Russell also suffered a little boost lag on the final lap, which gave him one last opportunity to attack.

It wasn’t enough.

Russell took the checkered flag for his third win of the season, with Verstappen second and Hadjar completing a double podium for Red Bull. Leclerc was fourth, Antonelli fifth and Hamilton sixth. Arvid Lindblad finished seventh, while Ocon and Oliver Bearman gave Haas a double points finish in eighth and ninth. Carlos Sainz took the final point in 10th.

And that, really, is Baku.

A race that begins with one driver disappearing into the distance and ends with that same driver wondering whether his car will actually have enough power to reach the finish line.

Russell admitted afterward that he had felt increasingly comfortable with the driving style he has developed since the summer break, saying he feels “more myself again.”

That’s encouraging for Mercedes.

For everyone else, perhaps less so.

Because if Russell can turn pole positions into wins while surviving Safety Cars, walls, boost problems and Max Verstappen appearing in his mirrors at the worst possible moment, the rest of the Formula 1 field may have a rather more annoying problem on its hands than it did when the weekend began.

And all it took was 0.196 seconds to prove it.

Winner Mercedes’ British driver George Russell, second placed Red Bull Racing’s Dutch driver Max Verstappen and third placed Red Bull Racing’s French driver Isack Hadjar celebrate during the podium ceremony for the Formula One Azerbaijan Grand Prix at the Baku City Circuit in Baku on September 26, 2026. (Photo by Andrej ISAKOVIC / AFP via Getty Images)

 

Azerbaijan Grand Prix Results

Pos. No. Driver Team Laps Time / Retired Pts.
1 63 George Russell Mercedes 51 1:38:02.143 25
2 3 Max Verstappen Red Bull Racing 51 +0.196s 18
3 6 Isack Hadjar Red Bull Racing 51 +10.704s 15
4 16 Charles Leclerc Ferrari 51 +14.136s 12
5 12 Kimi Antonelli Mercedes 51 +14.512s 10
6 44 Lewis Hamilton Ferrari 51 +22.382s 8
7 41 Arvid Lindblad Racing Bulls 51 +31.159s 6
8 31 Esteban Ocon Haas F1 Team 51 +31.189s 4
9 87 Oliver Bearman Haas F1 Team 51 +31.929s 2
10 55 Carlos Sainz Williams 51 +32.416s 1
11 27 Nico Hulkenberg Audi 51 +33.231s 0
12 30 Liam Lawson Racing Bulls 51 +34.013s 0
13 81 Oscar Piastri McLaren 51 +36.401s 0
14 11 Sergio Perez Cadillac 51 +41.400s 0
15 5 Gabriel Bortoleto Audi 51 +44.230s 0
16 77 Valtteri Bottas Cadillac 49 DNF 0
NC 43 Franco Colapinto Alpine 36 DNF 0
NC 10 Pierre Gasly Alpine 35 DNF 0
NC 1 Lando Norris McLaren 35 DNF 0
NC 23 Alexander Albon Williams 29 DNF 0
NC 14 Fernando Alonso Aston Martin 20 DNF 0
NC 18 Lance Stroll Aston Martin 7 DNF 0

Note – Bortoleto received a 10-second time penalty for overtaking under yellow flags.

Greg Engle
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Greg Engle

Editor at Caraganza.com
Greg is a published award winning sportswriter who spent 23 years combined active and active reserve military service, much of that in and around the Special Operations community. Greg was a writer for DriveTribe supporting Amazon's The Grand Tour and has been published in major publications across the country including the Los Angeles Times, the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He was also a contributor to Chicken Soup for the NASCAR Soul, published in 2010, and the Christmas edition in 2016. He wrote as the NASCAR, Formula 1, Auto Reviews and National Veterans Affairs Examiner for Examiner.com and has appeared on Fox News. He holds a BS degree in communications, a Masters degree in psychology. He is currently the weekend Motorsports Editor for Autoweek and a regular contributor to Forbes.
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