What McLaren's big Baku win means for the F1 title fight – our verdict

Following Oscar Piastri's victory and Lando Norris's recovery to fourth place at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, as well as Sergio Perez's collision with Carlos Sainz and Max Verstappen's poor weekend, McLaren now leads the 2024 Formula 1 Constructors' Championship.

All this came amid McLaren declaring that Piastri would back Norris if needed, and Red Bull introducing an upgrade designed to solve its major problems. What do the events in Baku mean for the title fight going forward?

Here are our team’s initial thoughts:

VERSTAPPEN GETS AWAY AGAIN

Ben Anderson

This was another example of Verstappen coming away with a win in the 'battle' for the drivers' championship. He had absolutely no chance this weekend, but the 'wrong' McLaren won, so Verstappen suffered little damage.

And this time it was certainly not McLaren's fault, which, given its pace gap to Ferrari, Red Bull and Mercedes, delivered perhaps its most impressive Grand Prix of the season on Friday.

Piastri was superb, taking exquisite revenge on Charles Leclerc at Monza. Norris also drove a brilliant race – and also played a crucial role in Piastri's victory, holding off Perez and helping Piastri avoid the dreaded 'undercut' during pit stops.

McLaren now leads the Constructors' Championship by 20 points and this is a fully deserved reward for its incredible development trajectory – and for having two top-class drivers to capitalise on this progress.

Red Bull may take some comfort in the fact that Pérez was in the thick of things until his accident with Sainz, but there is also great concern that the recent improvement to the track appears to have only benefited the slower driver.

Verstappen agrees that the car is better overall than before, but his RB20 was jumping around at the back, not turning properly and not braking properly. Perhaps that was unusual in Baku, but now he has not even come close to the podium for two races in a row and his winless streak stretches back seven races…

What happened to Norris in Q1 was just bad luck. But given the race that ultimately went to McLaren and Piastri, it has to be said that Norris had another missed opportunity to put Verstappen under real pressure.

A major team-internal twist for Red Bull

Scott Mitchell-Malm

I remain skeptical about a fight for the drivers' championship and this doesn't really change that.

But the faint hope of such a title remained after Norris actually managed to make up some of his lead over Verstappen despite his nightmare Saturday.

This has given Red Bull's problem a new twist: there is potential in this car that Verstappen cannot exploit. Sergio Perez showed that this weekend, and that was a long time ago.

Normally we believe that Verstappen will get the best out of the car and that could work in his favour. If he learns from this, like he did from his loss to Perez in Baku in 2023, he will clearly be fighting for podiums at best for the rest of the season. That will be enough to win the championship.

Perez's form is a welcome bright spot for Red Bull, but not enough considering the car is weaker than McLaren's, so I would be stunned to see Red Bull return to the Constructors' Championship. This battle was only going one way and now that McLaren are ahead, I see no reason why it shouldn't stay there.

The explanation of the McLaren team orders now looks silly

Josh Suttill

Sunday couldn't have gone much better for McLaren.

Piastri wins from the front row and Norris storms from 15th to 4th, overtaking his title rival Verstappen. It's a big win for the team and proves that Norris can still challenge for the championship even after a disaster in qualifying. You'd much rather have the car that failed in qualifying due to unfortunate circumstances than the one that fell behind on Sunday due to factors of its own making.

McLaren failed, however, when it made headlines just before the weekend for unnecessarily favoring Norris over Piastri.

It was right to back Norris and make tough decisions to win the drivers' title. It's a realistic goal and there are things McLaren can and should do.

But there was no need to set the tone and action for the weekend with such a major public statement on Thursday.

Norris said on Thursday “We've made decisions and gone through things before, we just haven't said it publicly. We've ultimately told you what you wanted to hear rather than anything else,” suggesting that one of the main reasons for McLaren's Norris's priority communication was to silence the noise from fans and media.

But if it was about optics, then Piastri's victory by a large margin over the driver who wanted to win McLaren as a supporter will look like an unnecessary own goal.

It was impossible to predict that Norris would qualify in such a poor position, but Piastri has scored more points than Norris in the last six rounds before Baku, so it was always possible that this would happen again this weekend.

This is not just a matter of hindsight, but McLaren should have handled things better internally by publicly declaring that it wants to win both titles and promising that it will do whatever it takes to win them.

NORRIS NOT GAINING GROUND FAST ENOUGH

Edd Straw

The events in Baku have not changed the landscape of the World Championship fight.

Although McLaren is now at the top of the constructors' championship, this has been inevitable for some time and is merely the implementation of a prevailing trend.

In the drivers' championship, this is another race that could have been huge for Norris but ultimately wasn't. That's because he was unlucky in Q1 to see Esteban Ocon's Alpine hit by a double yellow flag, meaning it was always about damage limitation for him.

Overall, things went well for Norris as he beat Verstappen, but the collision between Carlos Sainz and Perez also helped as it meant Verstappen lost the chance to set an inevitable fastest lap as he had fitted soft tyres, so that meant Norris was able to keep them, giving him a three-point lead.

But while this was a good result for Norris in the context of Sunday, overall it is still well below the finishing rate he should be achieving.

His progress has been slow and 59 points from seven races (with three sprints remaining) is still not close enough. This weekend it was down to bad luck in qualifying, but F1 history is full of examples of how difficult it is to make big, sustained points gains when you have to play catch-up even with a more powerful car.

The key questions remain the same: whether Red Bull can make a big step with a corrective upgrade – most likely in Austin next month – and whether Norris can accelerate his points progress with time running out.

PLEASE LET'S KEEP THIS GREAT RACE

Gary Anderson

I think we just saw the best race in several seasons with three different teams battling for the win. Unfortunately, the FIA ​​is about to do a restart with major rule changes for 2026. Throw away the MGU-H if you want, help save the world by using a higher proportion of sustainable fuel, but please at least rethink the chassis changes, just put the icing on the current package and let's keep what we have: racing.

To repeat, it is a tough battle for the grand prize, the constructors' championship, at the end of the season. It is closer than it has been for probably 10 years. McLaren is now in the lead with 476 points, Red Bull with 456, Ferrari still just behind with 425. So everything is wide open in the remaining seven events.

In the drivers' championship, Norris is finding it a little harder to catch Verstappen. He was able to close the gap a little this weekend, but not enough to make a big impact.

Verstappen has 313 points, Norris 254, Leclerc 235 and today's winner Piastri 222, so none of the top four are actually out of the race. Piastri has the most points in the last seven races, so not bad for what his manager Mark Webber would call a “number two”. Just kidding.

With seven Grands Prix still to go (with 182 GP points up for grabs for the fastest lap, plus three sprints worth 24 points, for a total of 206 points up for grabs), Norris needs an average of nine points more per race than Verstappen, Leclerc 11 and Piastri 13. That's difficult for anyone except Norris, but not impossible.

Red Bull's fate had been decided for about ten races and the team had not reacted as it would have in the past.

But if Verstappen doesn't start giving away points through over-revving and mistakes, the drivers' championship will probably still be his.

The Constructors' Championship looks different and hopefully both championships will remain exciting until the final checkered flag of the season.