Azerbaijan GP: Max Verstappen claims dominant win after championship leader Oscar Piastri crashes out on first lap
Max Verstappen claims dominant Azerbaijan Grand Prix victory; championship leader Oscar Piastri crashed out on the first lap; Lando Norris could only manage seventh as he reduced his McLaren team-mate's title lead to 25 points
Sunday 21 September 2025 15:30, UK
Oscar Piastri's first-lap crash allowed Lando Norris to reduce his McLaren team-mate's world championship lead to 25 points as Max Verstappen claimed a dominant victory at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
Having uncharacteristically crashed out of qualifying on Saturday, Piastri remarkably repeated his error on the opening lap in Baku to present Norris with a huge opportunity to reduce what had been a 31-point gap between the pair.
Norris was ultimately only able to add six points to his tally as a combination of losing early positions and a slow pit stop limited him to finishing where he started in seventh.
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Verstappen calmly controlled the race from pole position to win by almost 15 seconds, securing his second successive victory and underlining Red Bull's improvement since the summer break.
The Dutchman reduced his championship deficit to Piastri to 69 points, but his hopes of securing a fifth successive drivers' title remain extremely faint with just seven rounds of the season remaining.
"This weekend has been incredible for us," Verstappen said. "Monza was already great but for us to win here is fantastic.
"The car was working really well on both compounds. We had clean air all the time, so you could look after your tyres, and it was pretty straightforward."
George Russell overcame the illness that had troubled him throughout the weekend to come from fifth on the grid to take second, while Carlos Sainz drove superbly to hold off the other Mercedes of Kimi Antonelli to claim Williams' first podium since 2021.
Liam Lawson continued Racing Bulls' strong form by holding off Red Bull's Yuki Tsunoda for fifth, with Norris stuck behind the pair at the chequered flag.
Lewis Hamilton recovered from 12th on the grid to finish a place ahead of his Ferrari team-mate Charles Leclerc in eighth, while Isack Hadjar secured an additional point for Racing Bulls.
McLaren's worst weekend of the season in terms of points scored saw them miss out on the opportunity to break Red Bull's 2023 record for the earliest Constructors' Championship triumph, but only a huge underperformance in Singapore in two weeks' time will prevent them from sealing the title.
Norris fails to cash in on Piastri crashes
Despite McLaren's underwhelming qualifying display, most in the paddock were expecting Norris and Piastri both to be in podium contention on Sunday from their starting positions of seventh and ninth, respectively.
Piastri's hopes of a podium were blown immediately as the Australian jumped the start, and then compounded the error by stopping and falling to the back of the field.
Apparently still reeling from his disastrous start, Piastri then made a misjudgement on the approach to Turn 5 on the first lap, and drove his McLaren straight into the barriers, triggering a Safety Car.
It was the first time in 45 races that Piastri had failed to finish a grand prix, with his last DNF having come at the 2023 United States Grand Prix during his rookie campaign.
Piastri told Sky Sports F1: "Certainly not my finest moment. I just anticipated the start too much. A silly, simple error really with that.
"The crash - I just didn't anticipate the dirty air in the way I should have. Clearly went into the corner way too hot and that was that.
"The grip level was low but I should know that. So, I'm certainly not blaming it on anything other than myself. Just didn't make the judgement calls that I need to at the right time, and that's obviously disappointing."
Having suffered a major blow at the Dutch Grand Prix in late August when a technical failure forced him to retire as Piastri won, Norris appeared to have been presented with the perfect opportunity to eat into his team-mate's advantage.
The Brit had only qualified seventh after Piastri's Saturday crash, and once more was guilty of making errors of his own as he lost a place at the start to Hadjar, and was then passed by Leclerc at the Safety Car restart.
Norris swiftly followed Leclerc past Hadjar, but then found himself stuck in a DRS train behind the Ferrari and Tsunoda's Red Bull ahead of it.
With overtaking on track proving extremely difficult and all the front-runners opting for a one-stop strategy, McLaren extended Norris' opening stint in the hope of creating a tyre advantage over the likes of Leclerc and Lawson, who had pitted relatively early.
When McLaren brought Norris in at the end of lap 37, a clean stop had the potential to bring him out ahead of the battle between Lawson and Leclerc, and to also undercut Tsunoda, who Red Bull had also kept out on a long first stint.
However, a slow pit stop which took over four seconds left Norris trailing all three of them and once more faced with making ground on track.
He managed to get past Leclerc with 10 laps remaining, but couldn't force his way past Tsunoda despite pushing hard right up until the final corners.
Asked by Sky Sports F1 whether he had missed an opportunity, Norris replied: "I don't know why everyone says that. I mean I did the best I could yesterday, the best I could today.
"The opportunities are there every weekend. Every race I didn't win was an opportunity missed, so of course today I wanted more. It was not a good result, but I couldn't do anything more today. It was lost yesterday because of going out a bit early, not doing the best lap, maybe could have gained a couple of positions.
"But I don't think it would have changed anything today, it was just impossible to overtake. I look back to yesterday more than anything today."
Verstappen imperious as Sainz seals first podium for Williams
Verstappen had done the hard work by making light work of hugely challenging conditions at the end of qualifying to take pole position by almost half a second.
With the McLarens and Ferraris starting so far down the grid, the biggest threat to him on Sunday appeared to be some sort of major misfortune caused by an ill-timed Safety Car or weather.
Neither materialised, which enabled him to complete the most routine of victories as he managed his pace in the early stages before gradually building a lead.
Verstappen looked after his tyres to ensure that he could stay out longer than any of the cars behind him, meaning that even a second Safety Car wouldn't have had the potential to unduly harm his chances.
After the drama of Christian Horner's sacking as team principal in July, his replacement Laurent Mekies appears to have steadied Red Bull over the summer break, with Verstappen having finished second at the Dutch Grand Prix before his back-to-back wins in Italy and Azerbaijan.
Verstappen was trailed for much of the opening stint by Sainz, who had claimed second on the grid thanks to both impressive speed and a little bit of good fortune on Saturday.
The Spaniard drove with typical composure to manage his tyres on the opening stint, and although he was leapfrogged by Russell, never looked under serious threat from the other Mercedes of Antonelli.
Sainz has endured a tough first campaign with Williams since joining after being replaced by Hamilton at Ferrari, with his previous highest grand prix finish having been eighth.
Sainz said: "I cannot describe how happy I am and how good this feels. It tastes even better than my first ever podium.
"We have been fighting hard all year and we proved when we had the speed, we had it all year and everything comes together and we can do some amazing things together."
The 2025 Formula 1 title fight continues under the lights at the Singapore Grand Prix on October 3-5, live on Sky Sports F1. Stream Sky Sports with NOW - no contract, cancel anytime
