BAKU, Sept 15 (Askume) – Oscar Piastri won the Azerbaijan Grand Prix as McLaren moved top of the constructors’ championship. Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz and Red Bull’s Sergio Perez collided just before the final lap and the race ended under a virtual safety car.
Ferrari pole-sitter Charles Leclerc was overtaken by Piastri on lap 51 and then had a fierce battle with Piastri before suffering a tyre blowout. Sainz-Pérez came back after the collision to finish second while Mercedes’ George Russell finished third.
Formula 1 leader Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen finished fifth ahead of his nearest rival Lando Norris, who started 15th and finished third for McLaren and received bonus points for fastest lap.
“It was possibly the most stressful afternoon of my life,” said Piastri after resisting persistent pressure from Leclerc to claim his second career win.
“It was definitely one of the best games of my career.”
Triple Crown winner Verstappen’s lead over Norris dropped from 62 points to 59 points after Norris first took a long pit stop on the hard tyre and then a run on the new medium tyre on lap 49, opening a gap of 15 seconds with the Dutchman.
McLaren currently leads Red Bull by 20 points with seven grands prix and three sprint races remaining.
Leclerc took the lead from the start, six seconds before the first pit stop, but his fourth consecutive pole position in Baku was destined to end in failure like the previous three.
Piastri was the first of the two to change tyres, with Norris having largely prevented Pérez from regaining the lead from an earlier stop on lap 16, and Leclerc following him into the pits a lap later.
The Australian then made a brilliant passing move on Leclerc at the first corner, but the race got more intense.
The top two drivers competed lap after lap. The Ferrari driver tried to use the DRS drag reduction technology to pass Piastri but was unsuccessful, while Piastri defended strongly and fairly with the advantage of clean air.
Leclerc tried repeatedly but failed on the long, steep straights along the Caspian Sea and the narrow, winding streets through the old city.
“I couldn’t push as far as I wanted and we lost the race because I didn’t defend well enough at the end of the straight,” said Leclerc. “Sometimes you make mistakes and I learn from them.”
The Great Divergence
Piastri eventually took the win by 10.910 seconds, while Leclerc was caught by Pérez and Sainz in a dramatic finish .
Pérez tried to overtake Leclerc on the final lap but failed, opening the way for Sainz to overtake the Mexican and move into third place at the first turn.
As the Red Bull driver tried to gain position at turn two, both cars collided and hit the wall, effectively ending the race and prompting the virtual safety car to be deployed at the finish line.
“What happened there?” Saenz asked in surprise, while Perez asked the same thing in more colorful language. Both men were summoned to the manager, who decided not to take any further action.
Fernando Alonso finished sixth for Aston Martin, while Williams benefited from a late crash, with Alex Albon seventh and Argentine newbie Franco Colapinto eighth.
An unexpected points improvement has lifted Williams to eighth, ahead of Renault-owned Alpine.
Seven times world champion Lewis Hamilton finished ninth for Mercedes as a power unit change forced him to start from the pit lane, with British rookie Oliver Behrmann taking the final points replacing the suspended Kevin Magnussen.
Bellman, who has scored points for two different teams in his two races so far, made his Ferrari debut in March as a replacement for Sainz, who was suffering from appendicitis.
