Singing Sainz might have been right all along — Azerbaijan GP takeaways

The Azerbaijan Grand Prix promised chaos, particularly after mayhem in qualifying, but ended up offering something of a straightforward race, which still had plenty of headline moments.

Carlos Sainz on the podium alongside a resurgent Max Verstappen, faltering Ferraris, and Pirelli’s misjudged tyre experiment offer plenty to analyse from the weekend.

Here are the main storylines that came out of the Azerbaijan event.

Sainz finds vindication with feel-good podium

Carlos Sainz and Williams‘ return to the podium in Baku was the good-feel story of the weekend, not just for the driver and the team but also to the championship in general.

For the Spanish driver, third place in Azerbaijan was worth far more than a trophy, as his post-race reaction showed.

Sainz screamed and sang on the radio during the cool-down lap, then jumped out of his car and ran to his Williams crew to celebrate the milestone.

“Honestly, I cannot describe how happy I am, how good this feels,” Sainz said right after the race. “This is even better than my first-ever podium.”

For the Spaniard, the Baku podium was vindication after a season in which he had often been left frustrated by the limitations of the Williams package, his bad luck, and his own struggle to extract consistency from the car.

Since joining the Grove team from Ferrari, Sainz has struggled to match the performances of team-mate Alexander Albon, one of the stars of the 2025 season.

Sainz has been quick in certain conditions, wayward in others, but he has too often been consigned to fighting for the lower points or even no points at all.

During his struggles, while facing questions about the length of his adaptation, the Williams driver had claimed that his speed was always there and that all he needed was a clean weekend from start to finish.

In Baku, it all came together for him, as the four-time grand prix winner showed the resilience that has defined his career.

Capitalising on a chaotic qualifying session to line up second behind Verstappen, he then delivered a flawless race, holding his ground despite the threat of faster cars behind and only losing out to George Russell‘s Mercedes.

Sainz’s measured performance reminded everyone of his experience and racecraft, and gave Williams its first podium in over four years and the first in a full-length race since 2017.

“We’ve been fighting hard all year and finally today we just proved that when we have the speed — we’ve had it all year — and everything comes together, we can do some amazing things together,” Sainz added.

“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.”

For a driver who has had to deal with plenty of frustrations in 2025, Baku felt like a breakthrough moment.

McLaren’s Verstappen worries are overblown, for now

Verstappen’s back-to-back wins at Monza and Baku have revived Red Bull‘s season and injected fresh intrigue into the title race, but the odds of a fifth straight title remain slim, regardless of McLaren’s fears.

It’s true that Verstappen has erased 35 points from Piastri’s advantage in two races, going from a 104-point deficit to 69 points in arrears with seven races remaining, but there were several factors playing into the Dutchman’s hands that are unlikely to be the norm going forward.

For one, it remains to be seen how Red Bull’s changes – including its new floor and a different set-up philosophy – work on the higher-downforce circuits coming up.

The low-downforce nature of Monza and Baku boosted Red Bull’s form, but most of the seven tracks to come will require much higher downforce levels, with which McLaren has dominated much of the 2025 season.

Baku was also an outlier in McLaren’s season, as a result of a chaotic qualifying that already compromising its chances of a stronger race.

Piastri had his worst weekend of the year and had no one but himself to blame for it, but unless he suddenly suffers a confidence crisis, he’ll be back at the front come Singapore, making Verstappen’s recovery job a lot harder.

Verstappen is by far the best driver of the current field, few will deny that, but the task he is facing would require an absolute meltdown from McLaren’s drivers.

“We’re talking about Max Verstappen. We’re talking about Red Bull,” McLaren boss Andrea Stella said after Baku.

He is not wrong, but under the current scoring system, 69 points represents almost three full race wins. No driver in F1’s 75-year history has overhauled that kind of deficit at such a late stage of a season.

At this point, Verstappen’s current situation is less about a realistic title charge and more about his ability to influence the fight between McLaren Piastri and Norris.

Should Red Bull manage to keep its current form, Verstappen can increase the pressure on McLaren, but to go all the way would require a swing on a scale F1 has never seen.

Ferrari missed one of its last chances

The Azerbaijan Grand Prix weekend was another example of Ferrari failing to live up to expectations, which for Baku were quite high given the nature of the circuit and Charles Leclerc‘s record of four poles in a row.

After showing competitive pace in practice, the Scuderia arrived in qualifying with high hopes, but a series of errors ensured that those expectations went unmet.

Lewis Hamilton failed to reach Q3, blaming Ferrari’s tyre choice — he wanted mediums instead of softs — for the failure to advance into the top-10 shootout.

Leclerc, meanwhile, crashed out in Q3 without posting a time.

The mishaps in qualifying effectively defined Ferrari’s weekend, and all the potential for a good result was out the window before race day.

Both drivers were stuck in traffic in the race, limiting their ability to make any progress.

Eighth and ninth places meant Ferrari dropped behind Mercedes in the standings and that Red Bull closed in significantly, thanks to Verstappen’s win and Yuki Tsunoda‘s sixth place.

To add insult to injury, the weekend ended with the anecdote that Hamilton tried but failed to give back the position to Leclerc, although even the Monegasque didn’t care much about it.

In the end, Baku highlighted that while Ferrari may not have a car to fight for wins, the lack of precision and sharpness in many areas is still costing the Scuderia a lot of points.

Tsunoda and Lawson progress complicates Red Bull’s decision

On a weekend when Isack Hadjar‘s links to Red Bull’s second seat grew stronger than ever, it was ironic that the French-Algerian was the weakest of the energy drink company’s drivers.

While Verstappen delivered another flawless performance, Liam Lawson and Yuki Tsunoda showed more promise than they have all season.

Lawson qualified third and finished fifth after a very strong race performance, while Tsunoda finished sixth following his most solid weekend of the season. Hadjar, meanwhile, wound up 10th.

The situation underlined the dilemma facing Red Bull: the second seat alongside Verstappen is tantalisingly close for Hadjar, yet he still has to demonstrate the level of consistency required to at least survive as the Dutchman’s team-mate.

While Red Bull appears willing to wait and assess Hadjar’s progress through the remainder of the season, Baku was a reminder that the choice remains far from straightforward.

Both Lawson and Tsunoda have made progress in recent races, but the Japanese driver remains miles from Verstappen’s form, and there is no way the Kiwi will again be moved to Red Bull.

With Laurent Mekies at the helm, the team appears to be taking a more measured approach to talent development – ensuring that promotion decisions aren’t made purely on hype or potential.

Still, he will need to make a decision soon, and weekends like Baku are not making getting that decision right an easy job.

No one likes the C6 compound

Another bit of irony during the Azerbaijan GP weekend was that Pirelli bringing a softer tyre selection to spice up strategy produced one of the most straightforward races seen at Baku.

The Italian manufacturer’s compound selection was one step softer than last year and included the C6, the softest of its tyres.

The C6 had already been used at Imola and Monaco, but it offered inconclusive results, as a late safety car affected the former and the mandatory two stops in the latter made strategy almost irrelevant.

No driver used the C6 compound in the race, and some drivers even qualified on the medium rubber.

In the race, medium-shod drivers were able to go as long as they basically wanted without much consequence, and those on hard tyres could have basically completed the race without stopping.

Teams leaned on the harder compounds, which offered predictable performance and allowed for long stints that simplified the race rather than complicating it. Every driver opted for a one-stop strategy.

While Pirelli can’t produce different compounds for each race, Baku must at least leave it wondering if the much-publicised C6 really has a place in F1.