Oscar Piastri won a thrilling F1 race in Baku on Sunday as McLaren overtook Red Bull in the Constructors’ Standings and Lando Norris inched towards title leader Max Verstappen.
Piastri and Ferrari rival Charles Leclerc were in a bitter battle for the race win before the McLaren driver pulled away and a crash between the chasing Carlos Sainz and Sergio Perez landed Mercedes’ George Russell on the podium.
Further down the pack, Norris closed down a gap of over 15 seconds to overtake title rival Verstappen and close the gap to the Dutchman in the standings.
F1 Driver Standings
PositionDriverTeamPoints1Max VerstappenRed Bull3132Lando NorrisMcLaren2543Charles LeclercFerrari2354Oscar PiastriMcLaren2225Carlos SainzFerrari1846Lewis HamiltonMercedes1667Serigo PerezRed Bull1438George RussellMercedes1439Fernando AlonsoAston Martin5810Lance StrollAston Martin2411Nico HulkenbergHaas2212Yuki TsunodaRB2213Daniel RicciardoRB1214Alex AlbonWilliams1215Pierre GaslyAlpine816Oliver BearmanFerrari/Haas717Kevin MagnussenHaas618Esteban OconAlpine519Franco ColapintoWilliams420Zhou GuanyuKick021Logan SargeantWilliams022Valtteri BottasKick0Driver Standings
Piastri said: “I tried to get in front at the start of the race but I did not have the pace. It felt like we had extra grip and I had to go for it. The last couple of laps were a little bit more relaxing.”
Leclerc, second, said: “We didn’t do any running in practice and we went down a direction for the race that was hard to manage. Oscar and McLaren have been better than us but not a great day for the team.”
Russell said: “I tried to get in front at the start of the race but I did not have the pace. It felt like we had extra grip and I had to go for it. The last couple of laps were a little bit more relaxing.”
Constructor title race
PositionTeamPoints1McLaren4762Red Bull4563Ferrari4254Mercedes3095Aston Martin826RB347Haas298Williams169Alpine1310Sauber0Team standings