George Russell did not put a wheel wrong in Baku, and the marking reflected it. BBC Radio 5 Live commentator Harry Benjamin handed the Mercedes driver a perfect 10 out of 10 for a weekend in which he was fastest on Thursday, took pole position by more than eight tenths of a second, and then held off Max Verstappen by 0.196 seconds at the end of 51 laps of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
“Pretty difficult to find fault with this one,” Benjamin wrote of a drive that was controlled from lights to flag and then defended under ferocious late pressure. It was Russell’s third win of the season, delivered on a day when six cars failed to finish, two safety cars scrambled the order, and McLaren left the Caspian with nothing.
Russell’s 10 and a Mercedes weekend of two halves
The margin at the line — under two tenths — flattered Verstappen’s proximity rather than Russell’s composure. Russell had built a lead of more than 10 seconds before Alex Albon’s crash into the barriers triggered the first safety car on lap 31, and even a final-lap yellow flag, caused by Valtteri Bottas finding the wall, could not shake him loose.
Verstappen took 9/10 despite qualifying eighth, a result Benjamin noted “looked poor on paper but came with genuine power and energy deployment problems”. The Dutchman carved through the field, took second from Oscar Piastri and closed to within a car length by the flag.
Championship leader Kimi Antonelli scored 7/10 for a weekend Benjamin split down the middle: crashing out in Q1 was “a costly and unnecessary mistake”, but recovering from 16th on the grid to fifth with floor damage was patient, mature work. Ferrari’s afternoon was quieter. Charles Leclerc (7.5) qualified second with the aid of a tow but had no race pace to match Mercedes or Red Bull, and fourth was “about the maximum available”. Lewis Hamilton (6.5) was sixth in qualifying and sixth in the race, hurt by a Ferrari run plan that left him without a tow.
Hadjar’s 9.5 marks Red Bull’s best weekend
The weekend’s second-highest score went to Isack Hadjar, whose 9.5/10 came after three races on the sidelines with a wrist injury picked up during the summer break. He out-qualified Verstappen to line up fourth, ran strongly in the early phase, then finished third — his second podium of the season — while, as Benjamin put it, “playing the team game when Verstappen came through”.
Two cars on the podium made this Red Bull’s strongest weekend of 2026, lifting them to 263 points and fourth in the constructors’ standings. Hadjar now sits eighth in the drivers’ table on 86 points, ahead of Liam Lawson (6/10), who returned to Racing Bulls after three races deputising at Red Bull and saw his race wrecked by contact from team-mate Arvid Lindblad at the second restart.
Lindblad, marked 7.5, crashed in practice and started 15th but took his chances in the chaos and pinched seventh from Esteban Ocon on the line. Ocon’s 8/10 — the equal-highest outside the podium finishers — recognised a Haas driver who started outside the top 10 and made decisive moves while others crumbled. Oliver Bearman scored 6.5 for ninth.
McLaren’s nothing day and a title fight reopened
Baku produced McLaren’s worst weekend of the year. World champion Lando Norris (5.5) made a mistake on his final qualifying lap, locked up in the race, and was then an innocent victim of Franco Colapinto’s restart crash. Piastri (5.5) qualified third and ran in podium positions for much of the afternoon before a huge lock-up at Turn One dropped him to 14th. “For most of the weekend this was heading towards a very high score,” Benjamin noted.
Colapinto’s 3.5 was the lowest mark on the sheet: his lock-up removed Pierre Gasly — rated 8/10 for a weekend that “deserved so much better” — as well as Norris, converting a likely Alpine double points finish into zero. His unserved 10-second penalty has been converted into a five-place grid drop for the next round. Aston Martin left without a finisher, Fernando Alonso (4.5) and Lance Stroll (4) both retiring with mechanical problems.
The wider consequence is a championship that has narrowed. Antonelli still leads on 302 points, but Russell’s 236 cuts the deficit to 66 from 81 at the start of the weekend, with eight rounds and the uncertainty over Qatar and Abu Dhabi still to come. Mercedes lead the constructors’ championship by 160 points from Ferrari. On current form, the fight for the drivers’ title is an internal one — and in Baku, the driver chasing produced the only 10 of the weekend.
Sports journalist and editor at SportsPortal.net. Covers cricket, football, Formula 1, tennis, and basketball with a focus on how global sports connect with Pakistani audiences. Follows the PSL, Pakistan national cricket team, Premier League, and major international tournaments. Has reported on sports for digital audiences since 2021.
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