Piastri wins in Baku, McLaren now ahead of Red Bull

Oscar Piastri won the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, securing a second victory in what are still the very early days of his Formula 1 career. McLaren's Australian driver took the chequered flag ahead of Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) after the pair had duelled almost all race long. George Russell made it to the third step of the podium, the Mercedes driver inheriting the position after Carlos Sainz (Ferrari) and Sergio Perez (Red Bull) collided on the penultimate lap, causing the only neutralisation of the afternoon, the race ending under the Virtual Safety Car.

Piastri picked up 25 points today and Lando Norris brought home 13, which means McLaren now leads the Constructors' championship, the first time the Woking-based team has done so since the opening round of the 2014 season in Australia.

THE DAY ON TRACK

The majority of drivers (14) opted to start on the Medium tyre. The Hard was chosen by Lando Norris (McLaren), Alexander Albon (Williams), Daniel Ricciardo (Racing Bulls), Zhou Guanyu (Sauber) and both Alpine drivers (Ocon and Gasly). As expected, the one-stop strategy proved the most effective in terms of tyre management: only two drivers, Stroll and Verstappen, pitted twice, but in these cases the stops were not for strategic reasons: The Canadian had a puncture as a result of a collision with Tsunoda on the opening lap and the Dutchman pitted again because he tried to set the race fastest lap in the closing stages, able to come down pit lane without losing position.

The longest stint of all was driven by Pierre Gasly (Alpine), who completed 50 laps on the Hard, only pitting on the penultimate lap to switch to Softs. As for the Medium, Alex Albon made the most use of it, doing a long 20 lap second stint on the C4.

MARIO ISOLA - PIRELLI DIRECTOR OF MOTORSPORT

"A fortnight on from the Italian Grand Prix, we have been treated to another really thrilling race, with the outcome unclear from the first lap to the last. In Monza we saw two different strategies in play, but today, almost everyone went with the same choice, but in no way did that detract from the on-track action, with a long three way fight for the lead, as well as several others battles throughout the race.

"For this weekend and indeed the next one, we have gone with the same choice of dry compounds, which worked as expected, adapting very well to the track characteristics and conditions. Going into the event, the Soft was clearly going to be a qualifying tyre and the Hard the quickest for the race, with the Medium as a great compromise for the first part of the race: between yesterday and today we saw those predictions confirmed.

"Even today, the track continued to rubber-in. It meant the lap times continued to improve and degradation was pretty limited. A few drivers experienced graining, especially in the first stint, but it did not significantly affect their performance. Clearly, running in traffic made life complicated in terms of tyre management, but that is pretty much inevitable with the current aerodynamic configuration of these cars."

FORMULA 2

A bittersweet win for Richard Verschoor in the Feature Race. The Dutch Trident team driver came out on top in a race that was interrupted immediately because of a spectacular accident at the start. Fortunately, no one was injured, but the race distance was reduced from 29 to 17 laps. The Italian team dedicated the win to its owner, Maurizio Salvadori on the day that his son Luca was tragically killed in a motorcycle race.

Also on the podium were Victor Martins (ART Grand Prix) and Kimi Antonelli (Prema Racing) while thanks to finishing fourth this morning and taking the extra point for the fastest race lap, Brazil's Gabriel Bortoleto (Invicta Racing) has moved into the championship lead, 4.5 points ahead of France's Isack Hadjar (Campos Racing) who left Azerbaijan with no points this weekend.

It is difficult to evaluate the performance of the two compounds Pirelli chose for this round because of the reduced race distance and the arrival of the Safety Car with two minutes remaining of the time allowed for the race. For the start, only three drivers chose the Soft, with the rest of the field going with the Supersoft, which allowed them to push for almost all the first half of the reduced race distance.

COMING UP NEXT FOR OUR TYRES

Next week, Formula 1 is back in action in Singapore for the 18^th round of the longest season in the sport's history. However, before that, there's an early nod to the 2026 season in Barcelona (Spain) on Tuesday, 17^th and Wednesday, 18^th September. The Barcelona-Catalunya circuit will host the debut test of the first prototype tyres built to the new technical regulations - still 18" but slightly narrower than the current ones. Aston Martin is supporting Pirelli for this test, with a car adapted to take the new size of tyre. Driving duties for the two days are entrusted to the Brazilian, Felipe Drugovich.