Since its introduction to the Formula 1 calendar, the Azerbaijan Grand Prix has hardly failed to produce a spectacle. No doubt, this prompted the 2025 slogan – Expect the unexpected.
In a fairly predictable way, the Baku city track dished up a highly dramatic qualifying session with several yellow and red flags dotted throughout the 2-hour session. But the genuinely unexpected drama came with Oscar Piastri crashed in the final Q3 session. The Aussie has hardly made any mistakes this season, aside from a slip off the track at the very first race of the year. It raised a number of eyebrows and opened the door for Lando Norris to make hay. However, he too hit the barriers and would only start the race in P7. It was enough of an opening for Max Verstappen who seized the opportunity and pole position emphatically. The other stand-outs from quali came in the form of Carlos Sainz in second and Liam Lawson, of Racing Bulls, in third.
As if to increase the nightmarish weekend to another level, Piastri’s Sunday didn’t get any better. He jumped the race start, plummeted to last, and then wrote of the front of his McLaren into a barrier. It ended a 44-race finishing streak in a row for the championship leader. There will be those who say the pressure is starting to tell, but Piastri has been exceptionally calm throughout the whole season. There isn’t much to hang this theory on, though. It may very well be just the way things go sometimes in sports. Bad moments, mistakes, unlucky flashes happen, and this was clearly the worst weekend of Piastri’s season, to date. Now it matters how he recovers from this in two weeks at the Singapore grand prix.
Try as he might, Norris wasn’t able to drive home a genuine advantage over his McLaren. Teammate. For most of the race, he was stuck behind other cars without being able to make a real impression. To add insult to injury, a slow pitstop cost him a valuable two seconds that would have, at least, catapulted him into fifth place. The McLaren won’t want to forget about their Baku weekend, though. They’ll go back to base, dissect it, and learn from it. And that is the sort of approach that has made them, nearly, back-to-back constructors’ champions.
Elsewhere, Verstappen turned back the clock with a dominant win. But most impressive were the drives of Carlos Sainz and Liam Lawson. Sainz’s time at Williams, so far, has been everything short of spectacular. This weekend, though, it all finally came together, and he was able to remind the paddock and the fans just what a handy driver he really is. A fine third place for Sainz was tremendously well deserved. Liam Lawson, too, was equally impressive as he held Charles Leclerc, Yuki Tsunoda, and Lando Norris at bay for most of the second half of the race. The Kiwi has rediscovered some of his mettle after a very public sacking from Red Bull, and he put it all on display in Baku.
In two weeks, F1 returns to the original night race of Singapore. A brutal test of drivers and another opportunity for McLaren to wrap up the title. But who would dare predict the outcome after a race weekend such as the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
