Max Verstappen is the Azerbaijan Grand Prix champion in after an engine failure on Charles Leclerc of Ferrari.
Leclerc’s second engine-related retirement from the lead in three grands prix leaves him trailing Verstappen by 34 points, despite six pole positions in eight races.
And it continues the impression that Ferrari’s season is falling apart after a promising start, as Leclerc’s team-mate Carlos Sainz also failed to finish following a hydraulic failure.
Verstappen led team-mate Sergio Perez to a Red Bull one-two, as George Russell took third for Mercedes, with team-mate Lewis Hamilton fighting back to finish fourth.
Russell had a lonely race, inhering fourth place when Sainz retired and then third after Leclerc went out, to keep up his record of being the only driver to finish in the top five in every race this season in his first year with Mercedes..
The two Mercedes drivers stopped together under the first virtual safety car, and the slight delay to Hamilton, who was forced to wait behind his team-mate, meant he dropped back to 11th place.
He inherited a place when Aston Martin’s Sebastian Vettel ran wide trying to pass Esteban Ocon’s Alpine, who Hamilton then passed a few laps after.
The race race heads to the Canadian grand prix on 19th of June.