Verstappen hails 'fantastic' Azerbaijan victory after dominant performance

Max Verstappen admits his lights-to-flag victory in the Azerbaijan Grand Prix was "fantastic" having comfortably controlled Sunday's race to take back-to-back Formula 1 wins.

The Red Bull driver was never headed over 51-laps on the streets of Baku, having held the lead from pole and, after an early Safety Car restart, slowly pulled away from Carlos Sainz and then George Russell, the pair completing the podium.

"I think this weekend has been incredible for us," said Verstappen after his fourth win of the 2025 campaign.

"Of course, last [F1] weekend was already great, but for us to win here again is just fantastic. I think also in the race, the car was working really well on both of the compounds [of tyre]. We had clean air all of the time and then you could look after your tyres and it was pretty straightforward.

“Of course, it’s not easy around here. It was very windy today, so the car was always moving around a lot, but of course, I’m incredibly happy with this performance.”

With Drivers' Championship leader Oscar Piastri crashing out on the opening lap and title rival Lando Norris only seventh, Verstappen has closed the gap to the top of the table down to just 69 points with seven races remaining.

But the Dutchman was cautious about his title chances despite McLaren enduring its worse weekend of the season and missing out on the Constructors' Championship in Baku.

“It’s difficult to say at the moment, but for sure, the last two race weekends have been amazing for us," said Verstappen on mounting a title challenge.

"Singapore is a completely different challenge again with the high downforce, but we will see what we can do there.”

It was a strong day for Red Bull, with Yuki Tsunoda claiming his best result for the team in sixth having applied late pressure to Racing Bulls driver Liam Lawson in the closing stages.

"Happy with it, especially the pace I showed today is a lot different to other race weekends," said Tsunoda.

"I think I got supported a lot from the team to change massively like this internally and also the efforts I put in over the weeks, definitely shows some improvement there.

"Everything matches well and to be able to secure this result, which definitely is a positive. Some bits I can improve for sure and sharpen up more quality but was a good race."