Red Bull see Max Verstappen triumph at Azerbaijan Grand Prix

Red Bull made it back-to-back F1 race wins as Max Verstappen won the Azerbaijan Grand Prix in Baku.

A dominant afternoon by the Dutch driver saw him convert pole to success, leading home runner up George Russell by just over 14 seconds.

The result meant a second win in a row for Verstappen, who had won F1’s previous race in Italy, as well as bringing him up to 4 race wins in the season after previously winning the rounds in Japan and Emilia-Romagna.

It was also a productive afternoon for his Red Bull teammate Yuki Tsunoda, who finished 6th in his best result in the 2025 season so far and his best since replacing Liam Lawson at Red Bull, even if he did finish directly behind Lawson, who took 5th for Racing Bulls.

With 7 races of the F1 season, the result means that Verstappen closes the gap to the championship-leading McLarens ahead of him. The man who has won the last 4 Driver’s Championships is up to 255 points, with the Dutchman now 44 points behind second place Lando Norris and 69 behind championship leader Oscar Piastri, who failed to score points after a first lap crash.

Tsunoda’s points saw him climb up to 20 points for the season, with the Japanese driver now 17th in the championship.

In the Constructor’s Championship, Red Bull remain 4th on 272 points. The Milton Keynes-based team are in a close fight for second behind runaway leaders McLaren, with the team now sat 14 points behind Ferrari and 18 behind second place Mercedes, who overtook Ferrari after taking 2nd and 4th in the Azerbaijan Grand Prix compared to Ferrari’s 8th and 9th.

The race in Baku came the day after a qualifying session of extraordinary chaos, with 6 red flags – a record for an F1 qualifying session – after multiple drivers crashed over the course of the session.

Verstappen had picked up pole with a late charge to take pole position, and he lead the field away calmly enough ahead of surprise higher-up qualifiers Carlos Sainz and Lawson.

Tsunoda had meanwhile made a good start from 6th to get ahead of Russell, although the Red Bull was then re-passed by the Mercedes into turn 3.

The safety car was deployed on lap one when Piastri crashed by himself, ending a disastrous weekend where he also crashed in qualifying and jumped the start.

When proceedings resumed, Verstappen immediately settled into a move of zipping away and building a gap to the rest of the field.

Meanwhile, Tsunoda continued his early duel with Russell. After the British driver had trouble on the restart, Tsunoda crept ahead of Russell, only for the Mercedes to re-pass him on lap 9 after a few laps of seeking to get past.

Both Red Bulls had started the race on hard tyres with the aspiration of going long, in a race where rain had been in the forecast, if ultimately failed to materialise.

Tsunoda was the first Red Bull to pit when he did so on lap 39, as he sought to cover an undercut attempt by Norris’ McLaren. He was able to slot back in directly between Lawson and Charles Leclerc, just before both Norris and Lewis Hamilton made moves to get ahead of Leclerc after the Ferrari’s tyres faded.

Verstappen pit on lap 41 and continued to control proceedings for the remainder of the day, coming home to take his second win in Baku after previously winning the Azerbaijan Grand Prix in 2022. Victory was the sixth Grand Slam for Verstappen, with the Dutchman having taken pole, won the race, lead every lap and set the fastest lap.

Further back, Tsunoda remained in a duel with Lawson and Norris but couldn’t make a pass on the Racing Bulls, although he was able to repel attacking moves by the McLaren behind.

Red Bull’s attention will now turn to preparing for a very different test in the next Grand Prix, as F1 heads to Singapore in two weeks time.