Only just. By one tenth of a second. Practically a photo-finish. But victory for George Russell at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, achieved in drama with Max Verstappen right alongside him, means the Briton can just glimpse the prize on the horizon – the world title he craves.
Hmm, it still requires binoculars to detect it clearly, but it is no longer out of sight.
After this dramatic win, he remains 66 points behind his Mercedes team-mate Kimi Antonelli but this was a rare afternoon of cheer for Russell, with his rival finishing fifth. It means he cut his deficit to the Italian from 81 points, and there are 208 to fight for over eight rounds, including one sprint race.
Russell had not won for three months almost to the day, in Austria, before this and confidence was hissing out of him like a punctured tyre. Antonelli was the coming kid of 20, an unstoppable Exocet, or so it seemed.
But this time the wonderkid was stymied by crashing in qualifying and started 16th. He made good progress up the field and was helped by a couple of safety cars, the first bunching up the field when he was running ninth.
This punctuation in proceedings, brought about by Alex Albon bashing his Williams into the wall at Turn 5 at the mid-point of the race, allowed everyone to stop for fresh rubber. Nobody had pitted by this stage. And now the field was close to him when the green flag was waved after 35 of the 51 laps and the fight restarted.
George Russell claimed his first win in three months as he claimed the Azerbaijan Granx Prix
He beat Max Verstappen by less than a second, denying the Dutchman a first win of the year
Championship leader Kimi Antonelli could only finish fifth, having crashed in qualifying and started 16th
Russell, by the way, had priorly been sailing ahead from pole, the man dominating the race by a distance. His advantage at the time of the safety car’s maiden tour stood in double figures, ten or 11 seconds. Yes, his Mercedes was mighty quick but he was making full use of its potential around Baku’s tight streets.
As for Antonelli’s situation. The safety car peeled off and the next moment Franco Colapinto of Alpine came charging into the first corner like a 10-pin bowling ball. Kamikaze stuff. He crashed into his team-mate Pierre Gasly and took him out. Gasly then ricocheted into Lando Norris, a second helpless victim of the madness. The world champion was out of the race and the safety car was recalled.
This incident gave Antonelli – given Gasly retired, too – seventh place. The championship leader later passed Hamilton to claim his finishing place four back from Russell.
It was a decent drive from Antonelli in a fast car well-suited to the track, even if he could not recreate the heroics of his win at Monza earlier in the month when he rose from 19th on the grid.
Russell was too fast for everyone all weekend. Yet having established his huge lead that was eroded by the crashes, he found himself in a battle with Verstappen, who had passed Oscar Piastri for second place after the first safety car.
Ironically, Verstappen had been struggling for speed earlier but was then flying having moved on to soft tyres, just as Russell had, the pair on the same strategy.
The Dutchman, for all his harrying, had to settle for second place, though it looked at the end as if he might just pass Russell as they roared to the line side-by-side. It was touch and go, and one of the closest finishes in modern F1 memory.
Verstappen’s Red Bull team-mate Isack Hadjar finished third. Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc came fourth, holding off Antonelli’s charge by 0.3sec, with Lewis Hamilton sixth.
