Is Russell really back after Baku brilliance? — SkimNews
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- George Russell claimed his first career F1 Grand Slam at the Azerbaijan GP, taking pole position, leading every lap, and setting the race's fastest time.
- Russell cut teammate Kimi Antonelli's Drivers' Championship lead to 66 points with eight rounds remaining.
- Russell beat Red Bull's Max Verstappen by one-tenth of a second — the smallest margin of victory in an F1 race since 2002 — after two Safety Cars wiped out his lead late.
- It was the first time since the season opener that Russell clearly outperformed Antonelli; Antonelli had missed practice to technical issues and crashed out of qualifying at Baku.
- Russell must take an engine-change grid penalty before season's end as F1 enters a six-races-in-seven-weeks run, starting with the Bahrain GP hosted at Sepang (first F1 race there since 2017).
- Sky Sports pundits Jamie Chadwick and Karun Chandhok credited Russell's composure under Verstappen's closing-lap pressure, with Chandhok saying winning under pressure was 'more satisfying' than a runaway victory.
Why it matters: Russell had openly doubted his own ability mid-season as he struggled to adapt to F1's 2026 cars, and his Baku Grand Slam — smallest F1 winning margin since 2002 — directly answers those doubts. For Mercedes, the remaining eight races now reveal whether the gulf to Antonelli was a Russell-adaptation problem or something structural, with Russell carrying an additional engine-penalty handicap.
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