Azerbaijan GP 2024: Piastri passes Leclerc and holds on in Baku

Oscar Piastri won the Azerbaijan Grand Prix from second on the grid, beating Charles Leclerc's Ferrari by 10.910 seconds on the streets of Baku. He took the lead with a late-braking move into Turn 1 shortly after the pit stops, then spent the rest of the race keeping Leclerc behind. George Russell finished third for Mercedes after Sergio Pérez and Carlos Sainz crashed out on the penultimate lap.

How Piastri beat Leclerc

Leclerc took his fourth straight pole in Baku, 0.321 seconds clear of Piastri, and led the opening stint on medium tyres. Piastri could not stay within DRS range early on, but the stops brought him right onto the Ferrari's gearbox. With DRS open on the main straight, he dived up the inside at Turn 1 and made it stick.

Then came the long part. On hard tyres, Leclerc sat within a second for lap after lap and tried more than once to get back past, but Piastri kept the inside line into Turn 1 every time. In the closing laps Leclerc reported that his rear tyres had gone, and the gap finally opened. Piastri called it on the radio "the most stressful afternoon of my life".

Leclerc's fading tyres brought Pérez and Sainz onto him. Pérez tried the outside at Turn 1 and was pushed wide, Sainz got past him, and as Pérez came back at the Ferrari the two touched on the run to Turn 3 at the start of lap 50. Both hit the wall, the race ended behind the virtual safety car and the stewards opened an investigation. Russell, running fifth, inherited the last podium place.

Fernando Alonso was sixth, Williams took seventh and eighth, and Lewis Hamilton recovered to ninth after starting from the pit lane with a new engine.

The teammate duels in Baku

McLaren. Norris was out of position from Saturday: yellow flags spoiled his last Q1 lap and he started 15th. He ran a long first stint on hard tyres, held up Pérez during the stops (which helped protect Piastri from the undercut), passed Verstappen late for fourth and set the fastest lap. A strong drive, but Piastri won both halves of the weekend. Norris still leads their head-to-head 13–4 in qualifying and 10–7 in races in our count.

Red Bull. Pérez out-qualified Verstappen, fourth to sixth, his first Saturday win over his team-mate this season on F1 Duels. He then ran well ahead of him until the clash with Sainz. Verstappen complained of bouncing, weak brakes and a lack of front grip, and finished fifth, 77 seconds behind the winner. Our model still hands him the race, so Verstappen vs Pérez reads 16–1 in qualifying and 14–0 in races.

Williams. Franco Colapinto, in only his second Grand Prix, started eighth, one place ahead of Alex Albon, whose second Q3 run was lost when a cooling fan was left in his airbox. On Sunday Albon started on hard tyres, finished seventh and kept the rookie behind. Williams scored with both cars for the first time this season. Albon vs Colapinto now stands at 1–1 on Saturdays and 2–0 on Sundays.

Haas. Oliver Bearman, standing in for the suspended Kevin Magnussen, out-qualified Nico Hülkenberg and passed him late in the race to take tenth and a point. On F1 Duels that makes Bearman vs Hülkenberg 1–0 on both counts.

What it changes in the championship

Norris took three points out of Verstappen's lead, which now stands at 59 (313 to 254) with seven rounds left. The bigger shift came in the constructors' table, where McLaren moved past Red Bull, 476 points to 456. All the verdicts from the weekend are on the Azerbaijan GP duels page.