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Max Verstappen’s fourth grand prix victory of the 2025 season has refired his hopes of winning this year’s world championship.
McLaren were nowhere to be seen at the front of the field as Verstappen racked up the sixth ‘grand slam’ of his career.
On Saturday he denied F1 statistics writers an easy headline by beating Carlos Sainz Jnr to pole position. It would have been Williams’s first since 2014.
From there he led every lap and set the fastest lap on his way to victory. That means he now has as many grand slams as Lewis Hamilton. Only one driver in history has more than these two: Jim Clark, with eight.
Verstappen’s 51 laps at the head of the field last weekend means that, remarkably, he has now led more laps this year than Lando Norris. Points leader Oscar Piastri has led the most, 392, ahead of Verstappen on 281 and Norris on 241.
Piastri’s first-lap crash ended his 34-race points-scoring run, the third-longest of any driver in history. The record is held by Hamilton, on 48. No one will get close to that until the second half of 2027, as the longest points-scoring run of any active driver now belongs to George Russell, with just nine.
Sainz at least took Williams’s first front row start and podium finish since the 2021 Belgian Grand Prix. To find the last time a Williams driver finished on the podium in a race which officially lasted more than one lap you have to go back to Lance Stroll’s third place at Baku in 2017.
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Coincidentally, Stroll also lost second place to a Mercedes driver during the race, though it was on the sprint to the line, as Valtteri Bottas pipped him by a tenth of second. He almost returned to the grid this weekend as George Russell was unwell, but not too ill to prevent him climbing from fifth to second place in the race.
Sainz is the ninth different driver to have finished on the podium so far this year. That’s one fewer than last year. Among those yet to appear on the podium are Hamilton and both of Verstappen’s team mates.
Liam Lawson claimed the best result of his F1 career to date with fifth place for Racing Bulls on his first appearance at Baku. That rather took the shine off the driver who replaced him at Red Bull, Yuki Tsunoda, scoring his best result for that team so far.
Seventh place for Lando Norris, combined with Oscar Piastri’s first-lap retirement, meant McLaren left a round with their smallest points haul since the 2023 Las Vegas Grand Prix, where Norris retired and Piastri came in ninth. They remain the only team to have scored points at every round this year, but they missed a chance to claim the earliest constructors’ championship victory since 1988.
Verstappen’s win makes him the second driver to have won multiple races at Baku. His former team mate Sergio Perez also won twice. Along with Daniel Ricciardo’s 2017 victory, Red Bull now have more wins in Baku than all their rivals combined.
Ferrari have still never won at the track, and Charles Leclerc’s run of pole positions in Azerbaijan came to an end this year. He had taken pole position for the previous four events.
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Over to you
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2025 Azerbaijan Grand Prix
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