George Russell and Max Verstappen land Ferrari dig in cooldown room after Azerbaijan GP

George Russell and Max Verstappen pointed out Ferrari’s lack of performance at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix in the post-race cooldown room. 

Mercedes’ Russell ended his streak without an F1 victory by fending off a late challenge from Red Bull’s Verstappen to claim a much-needed third win of the season by just 0.196 seconds in a dramatic race in Baku. 

Reflecting on the race in the drivers’ cooldown room before heading out onto the podium, Russell and Verstappen noted Ferrari’s uncompetitiveness. 

“Ferrari’s pace didn’t look great,” Russell said, to which Verstappen responded: “No… slow on the straights.” Russell then simply agreed: “Yeah.” 

It proved to be a difficult race for Ferrari, with Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton unable to match the pace of the frontrunners as they finished a disappointing fourth and sixth respectively. 

Leclerc qualified second to join Russell on the front row, though he was over eight tenths away from taking pole position. 

The Monegasque immediately lost a place to McLaren’s Oscar Piastri at the start and was also overtaken by both Red Bull drivers as Ferrari struggled in the early stages. 

Ferrari’s pace was fairly anonymous throughout, leaving Leclerc and Hamilton out of contention and unable to even challenge for the podium, despite drama hitting some of their rivals. 

Out front, Russell and Verstappen were in a league of their own as they finished well clear of Isack Hadjar in third. 

“I think Max and myself were probably the two quickest drivers out there, and the soft tyre looked the best tyre, so I think that was maybe not allowing Max to get past Piastri,” Russell said in the post-race press conference. 

“But, yeah, clearly that final stint, the two of us were exceptionally fast and, you know, we were pulling a second a lap almost to the rest of the field, which was really good fun, to be honest. 

“It felt like qualifying laps, one after another, and I knew I couldn’t make a single mistake. But certainly, the last 10 laps were a bit more tense than the first 40.”