Russell dominates Baku to cut Antonelli's championship lead to 66 points

George Russell delivered a commanding performance at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, taking pole position and winning the race at the Baku City Circuit to close the gap to championship leader Kimi Antonelli to 66 points. Antonelli, who had crashed during qualifying, started 16th and recovered to fifth, collecting 10 points to Russell’s 25.

The result has prompted former IndyCar driver and F1 TV pundit James Hinchcliffe to question whether Russell has found a new level of understanding with his Mercedes machinery.

“What’s interesting for me is even at other tracks when George has been able to pull out good laps in practice, a good qualifying effort, in the race Kimi’s always still had the edge, even when George has won,” Hinchcliffe said on the F1 Nation podcast.

Hinchcliffe pointed to previous rounds as context. “You think back to when he passed him in Barcelona before Kimi’s car expired. He was closing down on everybody in Austria. Today they didn’t have that. Kimi did not have the pace of George all weekend long.”

The pundit acknowledged Antonelli missed some running in first practice but argued that should not account for the full gap. “Fine, he missed some laps in first practice, but he had FP2. He had FP3. He’s a professional. He gets up to speed quickly. What I’m really curious about is, has George cracked the code a little bit? Has he found something? Has he figured out how to get that extra step of performance out of this car? Because at no point this weekend was Kimi anywhere close to his level.”

Hinchcliffe stopped short of drawing firm conclusions, noting the coming rounds in Malaysia and Singapore would be more revealing. “I’m not saying that he has, but I’m curious if we get to Malaysia, if we get to Singapore, if we start seeing him closer, especially in race pace, maybe he has finally started to put all the pieces together.”

Antonelli still holds a substantial advantage at the top of the drivers’ standings, but Russell’s Baku victory — his most complete weekend performance of the season by Hinchcliffe’s assessment — raises genuine questions about the internal balance of power at Mercedes heading into the second half of the campaign.