Red Bull’s lead in the Formula 1 constructors’ championship is gone.

McLaren moved into first place with Oscar Piastri’s win in the Azerbaijan Grand Prix on Sunday. Piastri defended mightily against pole-sitter Charles Leclerc over the final 15 laps and Red Bull’s Sergio Perez crashed in the closing laps as he battled with Carlos Sainz for third place.

Red Bull went into the race with an eight-point lead over McLaren. This lead has now shrunk to 20 points thanks to Perez’s accident and Lando Norris’s drive to fourth place. Norris was eliminated in the first qualifying round on Saturday and had to start from 15th place.

Norris started the race on hard tyres and ran long in his first stint before switching to medium tyres towards the end of the race. The opposite strategy put him ahead of Max Verstappen, the man he is chasing for the drivers’ title.

Verstappen ended up fifth and scored the only points of the day for Red Bull. Perez is very good in Baku and could have finished fourth at most on lap 50 of the 51-lap race. But as he was driving with the two Ferrari drivers Leclerc and Sainz, he collided with Sainz and the two crashed into the wall.

Piastri started second

Leclerc made a good start and led the field in the first stint. Piastri took the lead shortly after the leaders came in for new tyres at Turn 1. This was perhaps not what Leclerc was expecting.

From then on, Piastri was in the lead, although he found it difficult to shake off Leclerc until the final laps.

Piastri’s victory came in the same week that McLaren announced it would give preference to Norris if necessary given the current drivers’ standings. Norris cut Verstappen’s lead by three points by finishing fourth and is now 58 points behind the three-time champion with seven races to go.

Verstappen is still the clear favourite to win the title, although it is far from a formality. McLaren were the fastest team in F1 over the summer and a Verstappen retirement combined with a Norris win could make things really exciting.

In the short term, Perez’s status at Red Bull may be more interesting. The team announced during the summer break that it had signed Perez until the end of the season, but the accident and the resulting lack of points on Sunday are another blow to Perez’s future, even if it was not his fault.

Before his accident, Perez could have scored at least 10 points, but McLaren’s lead would have been less than 10. However, Red Bull’s task of winning its third consecutive constructors’ title has now become a lot more difficult.

Mercedes’ George Russell finished third behind Piastri and Leclerc as the race was finished under a virtual safety car setting due to the accident. Russell’s teammate Lewis Hamilton finished ninth after starting the race from the pit lane due to a late engine change.

Both Williams drivers finished in the points, with Alex Albon seventh and Franco Colapinto eighth. Colapinto scored more points in Azerbaijan on Sunday than Logan Sargeant, the man he replaced two races ago, had collected since the start of the 2023 season.

Race results

1. Oscar Piastri

2. Charles Leclerc

3. George Russell

4. Lando Norris

5. Max Verstappen

6. Fernando Alonso

7. Alex Albon

8. Franco Colapinto

9. Lewis Hamilton

10. Oliver Bearman

11. Nico Hulkenberg

12. Pierre Gasly

13. Daniel Ricciardo

14. Zhou Guanyu

15. Esteban Ocon

16. Valtteri Bottas

17. Sergio Perez

18. Carlos Sainz

19. Lance Stroll

20. Yuki Tsunoda