Baku frustration for Norris after Piastri crash

Piastri off song in messy weekend

We’ve become so used to his ice-cold persona, but a year on from his victory of the streets of Azerbaijan’s capital city, Piastri just didn’t seem to be his usual self.

The Australian crashed out of qualifying which left him only ninth on the grid. On Sunday he jumped the start, then stopped when he realised his mistake only to trigger his McLaren’s anti-stall system, and was left dead last. Five corners later, he took a wide line into Turn 5 in a bid to make up places and slid lamely into the tyre barrier.

Stranded on the outside of the circuit, Piastri spent the rest of the Grand Prix watching the action on a phone, presumably supplied by a marshal. But at the chequered flag, he must have felt a slight sense of relief mingled with his dejection, because he got away lightly from his no-score. So, is this just a blip and he’ll quickly reestablish normal service in Singapore? It’s certainly a test of his usually cool, unflustered character.

Norris makes no progress

Had Norris qualified on pole or even the front row, he would have been perfectly placed to make a serious dent in Piastri’s 31-point championship lead. Instead, he too qualified poorly in seventh, and in the race failed to make up a single position, finishing where he started.

So much for McLaren wrapping up the Constructors’ Title this weekend. Instead, as Piastri triggered the race’s one and only safety car interruption following his opening lap shunt, Norris initially went backwards. He’d lost a place to Isack Hadjar’s Racing Bull at the start and slipped to eighth.

Disastrously, that became ninth when racing resumed as Charles Leclerc further demoted him, before both of them picked off the rookie on the following lap. Leclerc, who started on the medium Pirelli, then pitted for the hard, leaving Norris to run long on his white-walled rubber until lap 38.

When he did eventually pit, a sticking nut on the right front tyre stretched his time at a standstill — a slow stop for a second race in succession. This time he rejoined in eighth behind the excellent Liam Lawson and Leclerc and now faced a frustrating run to the chequered flag.

Norris moved back up to the seventh place he started from by passing Leclerc into Turn 1 on lap 41, but over the final ten laps was caught in a DRS train behind Lawson and Yuki Tsunoda (who had also run long before pitting), with Lewis Hamilton giving Norris cause to keep an eye on his mirrors in eighth.

Norris was powerless to make further progress on a day when the DRS effect was limited, with the upshot being that he made up just six points on Piastri, reducing the gap to the equivalent of a race win: 25 points. The gain could and should have been so much more.

Is Verstappen still in the title hunt?

The answer is probably not. But after two dominant victories, only a fool would rule out the four-time World Champion completely.

Verstappen is still 69 points behind Piastri in the standings with seven races to play, and that’s a very tall order to make up. But what does appear to be the case is that the Dutchman will muddy the waters between the two McLarens during the title run-in, as updates including a new floor have appeared to boost Red Bull’s performance.

He was in another galaxy compared to the rest of the field in Baku, scoring an emphatic pole position on Saturday, then leading every lap and adding fastest lap on Sunday for his sixth career ‘grand slam’.

“This weekend has been incredible for us,” Verstappen said. “The car was working beautifully.” On this form continuing, he said: “Difficult to say at the moment but the last two weekends have been amazing for us. Singapore is a different challenge again with the high downforce and we’ll see what we can do there.”

Sainz banishes his Williams demons

He couldn’t quite resist a brilliant George Russell, who overcut his way from fifth on the grid to second in a beautifully executed drive. But Sainz still relished standing on the podium in third following his stunning front-row qualifying performance.

In fact, the four-time Grand Prix winner for Ferrari was overjoyed at the end of what amounts to a breakthrough weekend for the Spaniard. Outshone and outscored by team-mate Alex Albon — who still has 38 points more than him this term — Sainz has at times cut a desolate figure, having struggled to adapt to his new team and car.

It must have been humiliating to find himself replaced by Hamilton (though there’s hardly any shame, given the comparison a seven-time World Champion), so it was heart-warming to see him put this performance together and deliver Williams a first podium since Lance Stroll managed one at Baku in 2017.

“I honestly can’t describe how happy I am and how good this feels,” said Sainz. “It’s even better than my first ever podium that I had. Everything comes together and we can do some amazing things together and today we nailed the race, not one mistake, and we managed to beat a lot of cars that yesterday I wasn’t expecting to beat.”

Lawson does himself a favour

Kimi Antonelli drove a solid race to finish fourth in the other Mercedes, much needed after his recent underwhelming performances, with Lawson finishing ahead of Tsunoda in his Racing Bull. There’s plenty of significance in that little storyline, given how Lawson was ‘demoted’ back to Red Bull’s B-team in a switch with the Japanese so early this season.

The Kiwi must have been dreaming of a podium having qualified a superb third on the grid, but it was always going to be tough to withstand the double Mercedes challenge. His cool defence for fifth will surely stand him in good stead as the parent company decides who goes where for 2026.

Hamilton inadvertently causes Leclerc tension

Behind Norris, Hamilton chased hard to complete a decent race performance after his disappointing slump to 12^th in qualifying. But he was apologetic in causing a minor diplomatic incident with team-mate Leclerc.

The pair were running divergent pit strategies, and Hamilton — running the hard tyre from the start — was allowed to pass Leclerc to have a crack at making up more places. As usual, the idea should have been for the pair to switch back before the chequered flag if Hamilton hadn’t made any passes.

But it seemed the order for Hamilton to allow Leclerc back past on the last lap came too late. He eased up and even braked so that his team-mate could shoot by. But at the line Hamilton was still 0.4sec ahead.

Leclerc was clearly nettled by this, although as he said himself, when it’s over eighth and ninth places it’s really not the end of the world. Hamilton promised to apologise once he got a chance, so it was a storm in a teacup. Another Ferrari miscommunication on yet another underwhelming weekend that had promised so much more after Hamilton had topped the second free practice session on Friday.

Images courtesy of Getty Images.