‘Team Verstappen’: Russell’s Baku podium comes with a reality check for Mercedes title tilt
George Russell dragged a fever through 51 laps of Baku and still hustled his Mercedes to second – with rookie teammate Kimi Antonelli banking fourth – on a day when the silver cars simply kept their noses clean while others didn’t. It felt like a statement. It wasn’t the one Russell wanted to make.
Because even with P2 in Azerbaijan and a points haul that nudged Mercedes’ cushion in the Constructors’, Russell isn’t suddenly betting the house on snatching third in the Drivers’ Championship. Not with Max Verstappen looking ominous again.
“This was a race where there was no overheating at all,” Russell said, nodding to a cool, quirky Baku that made tyre warm-up king. “It was more about keeping the tyres hot rather than trying to manage them to keep them cool. And then you had to really attack the corners to keep the temperature in the tyres.”
That, in Russell’s eyes, skewed the picture. McLaren’s rough Saturday left them out of position. Ferrari showed speed and then qualified themselves into traffic. Mercedes? It had a clean weekend. Which, as anyone who’s stared at Baku’s concrete can confirm, is half the job.
“I don’t think it’s any surprise when you see McLaren struggling a bit more,” he added. “They had a bad day yesterday, and they probably should have been at the front, and that would have changed the whole picture for them… the trends are clearly there, that the cooler races were good, McLaren struggling, and vice versa. But Red Bull have really picked up the pace recently.”
The scoreboard at the flag had Russell fourth in the standings on 212 points, 43 behind race winner Verstappen. Earlier this summer, that gap looked like something he could chip away at. Now? He’s reading the room.
“At one point, I thought we could maybe fight with Max for P3 in the championship, but he looks in a pretty strong place again now,” Russell admitted. “We just had a clean weekend, and we came home P2, P4. We didn’t do anything special, if that makes sense. We just stayed out of the walls.”
He wasn’t exactly crowing about his own execution, either. “I think there were a lot of mistakes yesterday in qualifying, like I didn’t feel like I brought my A-game the last couple of days,” he said. “Ferrari were so quick this weekend, and they ended up qualifying 10th and 12th or something. McLaren also looked really strong, and they were out of position… Definitely McLaren going to Singapore will be a different story.”
That’s the underlying theme for Mercedes post-Baku: perspective. The car was tidy, the strategy conservative, and the driver line was disciplined. On a low-deg, cool-track Sunday that punished hesitant out-laps and rewarded aggression to keep tyre temps alive, Mercedes executed. But it wasn’t an upgrade-led breakthrough; it was a good day at a circuit that loves chaos.
The press conference even brought a laugh that said plenty about the mood. Asked about holding second in the Constructors’ fight, Russell quipped that current form left “as much chance of Max finishing ahead of us as there is Ferrari, to be honest.”
“Red Bull, no?” Verstappen shot back.
“Yeah! Team Verstappen!” Russell grinned.
It was a joke, but not really. Mercedes’ margin over Ferrari still feels fragile when Verstappen is Verstappen. And if the Dutchman keeps banking big Sundays while Ferrari and McLaren counterpunch from race to race, the calculus gets tight very quickly.
Still, there was plenty to like in Mercedes’ day. Antonelli’s P4 was the sort of composed, big-team drive that makes life in the garage calmer on volatile weekends. Russell’s P2, while short of a win, was a reminder that when others trip, he’s usually there to collect. The team left Baku with a double top-four and no bent suspension – and in a season where the front three have ebbed and flowed, that’s how you survive the swings.
The question Russell keeps circling is whether survival is enough to topple Verstappen for P3 in the final stretch. Right now, he doesn’t think so. And for Mercedes, the bigger picture remains the same: keep Ferrari behind, hope McLaren’s peaks come on tracks that suit them less, and pray that “Team Verstappen” doesn’t singlehandedly turn the Constructors’ fight into a one-man wrecking ball.
Singapore will ask different questions. Hotter. Slower. Harder on tyres. If Baku was about lighting them up, Marina Bay will be about keeping them alive. Russell knows that’s where the true form book returns.
For a driver who woke up on Sunday unsure how deep he could dig, second place in Baku was a job well done. Just don’t mistake it for a title pivot. Not with Max smiling again.
