George Russell secured his third victory of the 2026 Formula 1 season at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, holding off Max Verstappen by just 0.196 seconds at the Baku City Circuit in a race disrupted by two Safety Car periods and six retirements.
Russell, who had qualified on pole by a commanding 0.837 seconds over Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc — the largest margin of the season — controlled the opening half of the race before a series of incidents reshuffled the field and brought Verstappen onto his tail in the closing laps.
Isack Hadjar completed a Red Bull double podium in third, finishing 10.704 seconds behind Russell. Leclerc took fourth for Ferrari, while Mercedes rookie Kimi Antonelli recovered from a qualifying incident that had dropped him to 16th on the grid to finish fifth, 14.512 seconds off the lead.
Lewis Hamilton was a distant sixth for Ferrari, followed by Arvid Lindblad in seventh, Esteban Ocon in eighth, Ollie Bearman in ninth, and Carlos Sainz in tenth — the latter result marking Haas’s first points finish since the Monaco Grand Prix.
The race was defined by chaos in the midfield. An error from Williams driver Alex Albon triggered the first Safety Car deployment. The second neutralisation came when Alpine’s Franco Colapinto locked up and collected both his team mate Pierre Gasly and McLaren’s Lando Norris, ending all three drivers’ races. The Aston Martin pair of Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll also retired with separate mechanical issues, while Valtteri Bottas drove into the barriers late in the race to become the final retirement.
Antonelli’s recovery drive was among the highlights of the afternoon. The championship leader had struck the wall at Turn 1 during the opening segment of qualifying, ruling him out of the remainder of the session and relegating him to 16th on the grid. He methodically worked his way through the field, capitalising on the attrition ahead to reach the points.
Oscar Piastri, who had run in podium contention for much of the race, was undone by a lock-up that dropped him outside the points. The Australian ultimately classified 14th, ahead of Cadillac’s Sergio Perez in 15th.
Russell’s win is his third of the 2026 season and his first since Round 8 in Austria. Verstappen, who led Red Bull’s charge throughout, was denied what would have been his first victory of the current campaign by the narrowest of margins.