🏎️ F1 updates from 1pm BST in Baku 🏎️ Russell vows to ‘keep fighting’ for title | Mail Philip
And we have a delay. The track is still being cleaned after incidents in the F2 race.
Portentous driver countdown time. The Sky team are reporting that the wind is up on the shores of the Caspian Sea, which will add to the unpredictability of a track with six red flags in last year’s race.
Some housekeeping. Isack Hadjar, whose first name I always think I have mistyped when I haven’t, is back in the Red Bull after his wrist injury. “I just need to get back into the rhythm but I feel great,” he tells Sky. Liam Lawson returns to Racing Bulls, and Yuki Tsunoda is back on the beach. Hadjar has also been confirmed in the seat for 2027. Well as Lawson did in the past two races, that is no surprise.
Gabriel Bortoleto and Nico Hülkenberg will remain as the Audi driving lineup for the 2027 season, the team principal, Mattia Binotto, confirmed in Baku on Friday.
Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll have yet more power-unit penalties and will start at the back in Baku, however they fare in qualifying. Stroll would have started there come-what-may, of course.
Lando Norris’s hopes of another pole look slim. He said the McLaren was “miles off” the pace after placing 14th and sixth in the two sessions and he was down in eighth in FP3.
“The car didn’t feel that bad, so it’s just a little knife in the heart when you see how far off you are,” he added.
Azerbaijan’s Remembrance Day was instituted in December 2020 to mark the outbreak on 27 September that year of the second Nagorno-Karabakh war. By F1’s 2026 standards, having a race weekend Thursday-Saturday is small political potatoes.
The Middle East war led to the cancellation of the Saudi Arabian race and the rescheduling and displacement of the Bahrain GP, now taking place on Sunday 4 October in Malaysia. Now, the conflict continues to threaten the climax to the season, scheduled for Qatar and Abu Dhabi but with Imola on standby should those races be postponed.
Of course there are far matters hanging on the US-Israel-Iran-Saudi-Arabia-Houthis conflict but Lewis Hamilton has been talking about his hopes that the scheduled season climax can go ahead:
“I personally want to go. I love going to the Middle East,” he said. “From what I have read, things seem OK out there, but I don’t have all the information and I don’t know what the risk levels are. I trust in Stefano [Domenicali, F1’s chief executive] to make the right decision for the sport. And I do hope we get to go there.”
Here’s a reminder of the picture in the drivers’ championship:
1 Kimi Antonelli 🇮🇹 Mercedes 292 pts 2 George Russell 🇬🇧 Mercedes 211 3 Lewis Hamilton 🇬🇧 Ferrari 191 4 Lando Norris 🇬🇧 McLaren 186 5 Charles Leclerc 🇲🇨 Ferrari 167 6 Max Verstappen 🇳🇱 Red Bull 145 7 Oscar Piastri 🇦🇺 McLaren 120 8 Isack Hadjar 🇫🇷 Red Bull 71 9 Liam Lawson 🇳🇿 Racing Bulls 59 10 Pierre Gasly 🇫🇷 Alpine 41 11 Arvid Lindblad 🇬🇧 Racing Bulls 31 12 Franco Colapinto 🇦🇷 Alpine 27 13 Oliver Bearman 🇬🇧 Haas 18 14 Gabriel Bortoleto 🇧🇷 Audi 10 15 Nico Hülkenberg 🇩🇪 Audi 7 16 Carlos Sainz 🇪🇸 Williams 6 17 Alexander Albon 🇹🇭 Williams 5 18 Esteban Ocon 🇫🇷 Haas 3 19 Fernando Alonso 🇪🇸 Aston Martin 3 20 Yuki Tsunoda 🇯🇵 Racing Bulls 1
Yet to score: Lance Stroll 🇨🇦 Aston Martin Valtteri Bottas 🇫🇮 Cadillac Sergio Pérez 🇲🇽 Cadillac
1 Mercedes 🇩🇪 503pts 2 Ferrari 🇮🇹 358 3 McLaren 🇬🇧 306 4 Red Bull 🇦🇹 230 5 Racing Bulls 🇮🇹 77 6 Alpine 🇫🇷 68 7 Haas 🇺🇸 21 8 Audi 🇩🇪 7 9 Williams 🇬🇧 11 10 Aston Martin 🇬🇧 3 11 Cadillac 🇺🇸 0
Russell had another good run in Friday’s FP3, but just missed out on a hat-trick:
Max Verstappen denied Mercedes rival George Russell a clean sweep of practice for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix by going fastest for Red Bull in Friday’s final session ahead of qualifying.
The Dutchman clocked a 1min 43.922sec lap in the closing minutes of the hour-long session to pip Russell by 0.099. Lewis Hamilton also pulled out a late flier to go third for Ferrari 0.111 seconds off Verstappen’s pace.
Kimi Antonelli, the championship leader, was fourth. He lost valuable track time to a hydraulics problem on Thursday. Reuters
Russell did go off the track at one point, into a run-off area at turn seven. It’s another tricky street circuit.
1 Max Verstappen 🇳🇱 Red Bull 1:43.922 2 George Russell 🇬🇧 Mercedes +0.099 3 Lewis Hamilton 🇬🇧 Ferrari +0.111 4 Kimi Antonelli 🇮🇹 Mercedes +0.351 5 Charles Leclerc 🇲🇨 Ferrari +0.622 6 Pierre Gasly 🇫🇷 Alpine +0.715 7 Oscar Piastri 🇦🇺 McLaren +0.824 8 Lando Norris 🇬🇧 McLaren +0.977 9 Isack Hadjar 🇫🇷 Red Bull +1.254 10 Franco Colapinto 🇦🇷 Alpine +1.670 11 Carlos Sainz 🇪🇸 Williams +1.683 12 Oliver Bearman 🇬🇧 Haas +1.770 13 Gabriel Bortoleto 🇧🇷 Audi +1.932 14 Esteban Ocon 🇫🇷 Haas +1.996 15 Nico Hülkenberg 🇩🇪 Audi +2.076 16 Sergio Pérez 🇲🇽 Cadillac +2.082 17 Alexander Albon 🇹🇭 Williams +2.154 18 Liam Lawson 🇳🇿 Racing Bulls +2.300 19 Arvid Lindblad 🇬🇧 Racing Bulls +2.349 20 Fernando Alonso 🇪🇸 Aston Martin +2.590 21 Valtteri Bottas 🇫🇮 Cadillac +4.665 22 Lance Stroll 🇨🇦 Aston Martin +5.357
Right, half an hour till qualifying. What has been happening so far in Baku? Thursday was a decent start for George Russell, as Giles Richards reported:
Russell opened well in Azerbaijan, quickest in first practice in a session where Antonelli lost half his run time with a hydraulic problem. In the afternoon Mercedes were once more on top, looking ominously quick on the street circuit which is energy-starved and plays to their car’s strengths in energy harvesting and deployment. Russell was quickest again, a full half a second up on Antonelli with their nearest competitor, Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, eight-tenths back in third.
Russell has not given up hope on the title front:
“I’m going to keep fighting at every single race until it’s mathematically impossible,” he said in Baku. “I want to try and win every single race and put it on pole at every single race. That’s my goal and that’s what I’m working towards every single weekend.”
Welcome to Friday F1 qualifying. No, this is not Las Vegas, but the result of Sunday being Azerbaijan’s Remembrance Day. So from 1pm BST the 11 teams and 22 drivers will be chasing grid positions for a race that starts at noon BST on Saturday.
Two weeks ago in Spain, Lando Norris took pole but had a near-certain victory snatched away by the timing of a virtual safety car, instigated just after he passed the pit entrance and allowing much everyone else to take a free pit stop … including Kimi Antonelli, the driver least in need of a slice of luck but whose championship lead was extended to 81 points with his victory.
Can Norris bounce back from the disappointment of his Madrid misfortune and claim a fourth pole in five races? Talking of Spanish pain, can Lewis Hamilton get his outside title responded on track after his DNF? Will George Russell, back in second but with litt;;e hope of closing the gap to his Mercedes teammate, be able to show the kind of form that made him pre-season favourite? Or will Antonelli enjoy yet another weekend? Join me from 12.30pm for all the buildup. For now, something a bit different to read: Alex Daniel’s report on how McLaren are targeting F1 fans with families …