McLaren achieved a unique feat with Piastri’s second win · RaceFans

Oscar Piastri’s second career victory in last weekend’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix means McLaren have achieved a unique record this year.

Both the team’s drivers have scored the first two world championship grand prix wins of their career in the same season. This has never previously happened, with the exception of the unique circumstances of the first ever world championship, when the chances of it occuring were inevitably far higher.

Piastri is the 81st driver in F1 history to win more than one grand prix – a fitting achievement given his race number. He became the seventh different driver to win in Baku and the sixth different winner of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix (the first race at this track was called the European Grand Prix). Sergio Perez remains the only driver to have won this event twice, under any title.

Lando Norris set the fastest lap, the 10th time he has done so in his career, putting him level with a trio of world champions: Graham Hill, John Surtees and Mario Andretti.

Charles Leclerc, Ferrari, Baku City Circuit, 2024 — Leclerc failed to win from pole for the fourth year in a row

Norris’ 11-place climb to fourth was the best improvement any driver has made on their starting position all year, one better than Lewis Hamilton managed in the same race (having effectively started 19th in the pits ahead of Esteban Ocon). Norris also gained places on the first lap, something he hasn’t managed in any other grand prix so far this season.

After the first 10 rounds of the year, when Red Bull had won seven times and Mercedes were win-less, it looked very much like the Milton Keynes team would equal the wins tally of their Brackley rivals sometime soon. At that stage Red Bull had won 120 rounds to Mercedes’ 125. However Red Bull can no longer catch them this year, having taken no further victories since then while Mercedes have triumphed three times.

For the fourth year in a row Charles Leclerc took pole position in Azerbaijan but was denied victory. This was the 22nd time he’s failed to win from pole position: His strike rate is just 15.3%. He has as many pole positions as Mika Hakkinen, who converted 10 of his.

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Even if Perez hadn’t tangled with Carlos Sainz Jnr on the penultimate lap, putting both out, McLaren were already on course to take the constructors’ championship lead off Red Bull. Thus ended Red Bull’s 833-day reign at the top of the standings.

George Russell, Williams, Spa-Francorchamps, 2021 — Williams scored their best result since Russell drove for them

Just as when Verstappen and Norris collided in Austria, the best-placed driver to benefit was George Russell. His third place moved him up to seventh in the championship. Perez, who was as high as second in the standings six rounds in, has fallen to eighth, with each of the McLaren, Ferrari and Mercedes drivers separating him from his points-leading team mate – a grim outcome from a race in which he’d spent every lap ahead of Verstappen.

The crash led to a points windfall for Williams, who scored 10 points, their biggest haul since the 2021 Belgian Grand Prix. Their drivers Russell and Nicholas Latifi finished second and ninth respectively on that occasion, but scored only half points as the race was drastically shortened. However the pair also scored 10 points in the preceding round at the Hungaroring, Latifi taking seventh ahead of Russell.

Franco Colapinto therefore became the first driver from Argentina to score points since Carlos Reutemann finished second in the 1982 South African Grand Prix. This does a disservice to a few other Argentinian drivers, however: Esteban Tuero and Gaston Mazzacane also achieved eighth-place finishes, in 1998 and 2000, both for Minardi, but only the top six drivers scored points at the time. That was also the case when Norberto Fontana took two ninth-place finishes in 1997.

Ninth place for Hamilton meant he had little to celebrate on the occasion of his 349th grand prix start. He has now entered as many races as Kimi Raikkonen, becoming the joint-second-most experienced driver in F1 history.

Finally, Oliver Bearman achieved the unique distinction of not merely scoring points in his first two grands prix, but doing so far two different teams: Ferrari in Jeddah and Haas last weekend.

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