Oscar Piastri won the Azerbaijan Grand Prix as McLaren went top of the constructors’ standings in a race that finished with a virtual safety car after a penultimate lap collision between Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz and Red Bull’s Sergio Perez.
Ferrari’s pole-sitter Charles Leclerc, who was overtaken by Piastri on the 20th of 51 laps and then battled nose-to-tail before his tyres faded, came second with George Russell inheriting third for Mercedes after the Sainz-Perez collision.
Red Bull’s Formula One leader Max Verstappen finished fifth, just behind his closest title rival Lando Norris, who started 15th for McLaren and ended up fourth with a bonus point for fastest lap.
“That was probably the most stressful afternoon in my life,” said Piastri, after soaking up relentless pressure from Leclerc to take his second career win.
“It definitely goes down as one of the better races of my career.”
Triple champion Verstappen’s lead over Norris, who went long on his first stint with hard tyres and then reeled in a 15 second gap to pass the Dutch driver on lap 49 thanks to his fresher mediums, was cut from 62 points to 59.
McLaren are now 20 points clear of Red Bull in the standings with seven grands prix and three sprint races remaining.
Leclerc led away from the start, and was six seconds clear before the first pitstops, but his fourth successive pole in Baku was destined to end in defeat like the previous three.
Piastri was first of the two to change tyres, on lap 16 with Norris crucially preventing Perez from getting an advantage from an earlier stop, and Leclerc followed him down the pit lane a lap later.
The Australian then made a great passing move on Leclerc at turn one but the battle was just heating up.
The top two duelled for lap after lap, with the Ferrari driver trying in vain to use the DRS drag reduction to get past Piastri who had the benefit of clean air as he defended tenaciously but fairly.
Bahrain’s sovereign wealth fund has recently taken full ownership of the McLaren Group, which builds high-end sportscars and owns a majority stake in the McLaren F1 team. The Bahraini fund, Mumtalakat, was already McLaren’s biggest shareholder.
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