The four-time Dutch world champion Max Verstappen, of Red Bull Racing, won this Sunday the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, the seventeenth of the Formula 1 World Championship, in the Baku street circuit, where Spaniard Carlos Sainz (Williams) finished third, signing his first podium with his new team, the twenty-eighth in the premier category, in which he has four wins.

Verstappen, 27, had started from pole position, raising his third-best all-time record of wins in the premier category to 67 with his fourth win of the year, the second consecutive for the first time this season, after his exhibition two weeks ago at Monza. This time he recalled old, not-so-distant times and won, without problems, in Baku - where he also won in 2022 - ahead of the Englishman George Russell (Mercedes) and Sainz, chosen 'Driver of the Day' and who celebrated his third place as a triumph, putting an end to a bad run, full of misfortunes, that had left him without points in the last six races.

McLaren, who this Sunday could have mathematically revalidated the Constructors' World Championship, will have to wait at least two weeks, after completing the worst weekend of the year. Australian Oscar Piastri (McLaren), who retired due to an accident - without any personal injuries - on the first lap, remains the leader of the World Championship with 324 points, but now 25 ahead of his teammate, the Englishman Lando Norris, who this Sunday did not go beyond seventh in a race in which the Argentine Franco Colapinto (Alpine) finished ninth.

'Mad Max' has long been far from a chance of a fifth consecutive title, but the Dutch star has emerged as the great entertainer of the 'Formula McLaren', where he remains third, although now 69 points behind Piastri, who minimized the damage on a day in which he did not score, but in which Norris only managed to cut his lead by six points.

New Zealander Liam Lawson (RB) was fifth this Sunday, behind the Italian debutant Andrea Kimi Antonelli (Mercedes) and ahead of the driver who replaced him at Red Bull, the Japanese Yuki Tsunoda,English:achieved his best result since driving in F1. But no one left Baku happier than Sainz, 31, who had achieved his first two podiums with McLaren (2019 and 2020), the next 25 - including his four victories - aboard a Ferrari, the team for which he drove the past four years and which, after all kinds of misfortunes, finally celebrated his first 'castellano' with Williams.

“I can't describe how happy I am, it was better than my first podium. Yesterday I said that the podium was a dream, but dreams sometimes come true; and if you work hard and things outside of your control stop happening, the reward comes,” commented an exultant Madrid driver, who made a jump in the World Championship, where he is now twelfth, with 31 points; after a race that both the athlete and the team executed to perfection.

Verstappen won, but it was Sainz who celebrated. Russell, who finished second, drove with a fever; and he was nowhere near at the finish line. A line that the two Ferrari drivers, seven-time English world champion Lewis Hamilton and Monegasque Charles Leclerc, crossed behind Norris, in eighth and ninth positions, respectively.

The Dutch idol started first, after having signed his forty-sixth F1 pole position, his sixth of the year and his second in a row - after the one he achieved two weeks ago in a true exhibition weekend at Monza. A pole that he snatched at the last gasp from Sainz, who, after having had his best Saturday of the year, started second, on the front row. Alongside his first teammate in the top category back in 2015 at Toro Rosso (later Alpha Tauri, now RB).

Lawson started third - ahead of the Mercedes of Antonelli and Russell - after having achieved the best grid position of his entire F1 career on a chaotic and crazy day, in which the all-time record for red flags was broken (six) in a qualifying session that lasted two hours.

Alonso, who fell in Q2 - by just seven hundredths - started eleventh, on the sixth row and next to Hamilton (Ferrari), twelfth, eliminated in the same round as the Asturian star.

Fernando faced the race just behind the most egregious accident victims of Saturday: Leclerc, author of the four previous pole positions in Baku - who started tenth - and the leader of the World Championship, Piastri, who had also been eliminated in the same round.

crashed into the wall and started ninth.

Norris - who arrived 31 points behind on the shores of the Caspian Sea - failed to take advantage of the golden opportunity that presented himself to him on Saturday after his teammate's mishap and only managed to 'scrape' two places on the grid; from where I started the race in seventh position. A position that he did not improve in the race, raising to two the golden opportunities wasted in two consecutive days. And whatever happens,Piastri will also start Singapore as the leader

Lando started nine places ahead of Argentine Colapinto, who was eliminated in Q1 and had also crashed into the barriers on the fourth of the track's 20 corners.

Of the top eleven, Verstappen, his teammate Tsunoda, and Russell started on hard tires. The rest were all on medium tires, just like Colapinto. Ferrari started strategies and Hamilton started on hard tires.

Under normal conditions, the race would have been a one-stop race. But conditions were changeable throughout the weekend and, especially after Saturday's qualifying, new red flags or the entry of a safety car onto the track were by no means out of the question.

What no one expected was that the incidents would arrive directly on the first lap, where the world championship leader retired, having an accident - without any damage - between turns 5 and 6, adding spice to the championship. A seasoning that Norris failed to take advantage of in a race in which little else happened.

Alonso was penalized with five seconds - as was Piastri, who was the one who led him into the error and who will serve a sanction in the next race, in Singapore - for irregularities in the start procedure. The Sao Paulo native had lost a place to Hamilton and was also overtaken by Brazilian Gabi Bortoleto (Kick Sauber) after the safety car left.

Behind him, Colapinto gained three and was thirteenth; and Norris - despite being passed by Leclerc - had the skies opened up again from eighth place and without his main rival for the title on the track. A circumstance he couldn't take advantage of.

Sainz was still second, two and a half seconds behind Verstappen, but with more than two seconds advantage over Lawson, after the tenth lap.

Norris couldn't keep up with Leclerc, who was also caught in the Tsunoda train, before Colapinto stopped on lap 18 to install hard tires. As soon as he entered the track, Sainz's teammate, Alex Albon, a Thai driver, touched his rear left wheel with the front wing of his Williams, causing him to lose a significant amount of time. Fortunately for the Argentinian, he stayed on track. But he didn't get past nineteenth.

Antonelli came into the garage on lap 19 - also on hard tires - to try to undercut Lawson and, in the process, make Russell's strategy easier. RB reacted in time, but couldn't prevent the Italian rookie from overtaking the Oceanian shortly after. Anything that slowed down the Mercedes indirectly benefited Sainz, who on lap 23 - when Alonso put on hard tires - was second, almost seven seconds behind 'Mad Max', but four seconds ahead of Russell, who was third. Verstappen was leading easily, with clean air and setting fast laps when Sainz stopped on lap 28, past the halfway point of the race, to put on hard tires,with which he hoped to run a run at least as good as the one he completed on the mediums.

The Madrid-born driver returned to the track in sixth place, behind five cars that had yet to stop. With Verstappen leading ahead of Russell and Tsunoda; and with Norris fourth, just ahead of Hamilton.