Max Verstappen (2nd): “If I’d started second in Baku, then …”

Max Verstappen secured his 134th podium finish at the entertaining Azerbaijan Grand Prix on the Baku City Circuit; with a bit of luck, it could even have been Max’s 72nd Grand Prix victory (and his first since Abu Dhabi 2025). In the end, George Russell kept the Mercedes nose ahead by 196 thousandths of a second.

So this is Max’s seventh podium finish of 2026: third in Canada, second in Austria, third in Belgium, second in Hungary, third in Italy, second in Spain and now in Baku.

There are two sides to Verstappen’s character after this race: the competitor Verstappen is, of course, a little annoyed that he missed out on victory by such a narrow margin; and the realist Verstappen is pleased with his strong response following a botched qualifying session.

Nevertheless, if we look at Max’s pace in the race: if he’d been able to start further up the grid, then …

The four-time Formula 1 champion says: “Yes, of course we should have done that. But sometimes a problem crops up, and that means you have to start from P8.”

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“But to be honest, even if I’d started second, it would have been very difficult to overtake him given George’s pace. Perhaps I could have kept up with him a bit better in the first part of the race. Then you pit, you’re second, behind him, and we’d probably have had the same race and pushed each other on.”

“That would certainly have made the first part of the race a bit easier for me, rather than having to overtake all those cars. The soft tyre was definitely much better than the medium one. I was very strong in the first few laps after the start, but then the tyres just stopped working, and it was very much a case of holding on for as long as possible.”

“So the safety car actually came at just the right time to switch to the soft tyres. And then I have to say – those final laps were great fun because there was hardly any tyre wear at all.”

“I was able to keep attacking right up to the end, and the gap was always around a second or 1.1 – that was nice. And of course it looked close at the finish line, but I think that was more because George had a bit too little engine power in Turn 15 under the yellow flag. So if you look at the final part of the race, the gap was always around one second, and that’s probably how the race would have ended anyway.»

“The car felt very good all weekend. Okay, then we had that engine problem in qualifying. Of course, we still have a few limitations with the car, which I’ve mentioned many times before and which probably can’t be resolved this year. So we know there’s still a lot of work to be done for next year. But the car’s balance was good.”

“The final lap was absolutely brilliant fun. I even grazed the wall a couple of times – just to leave my mark here in Baku. This track is always a big challenge, both in qualifying and in the race. Going flat out obviously carries risks when you’re driving so close to certain walls on the inside or outside. But that’s also what’s so cool about it here.”