Oscar Piastri wins Azerbaijan GP amid dramatic late crash

Oscar Piastri emerged victorious following a nail-biting battle with Charles Leclerc at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, catapulting his McLaren team in front of Red Bull in the constructors' championship by 20 points.

The race ended in dramatic fashion as Sergio Pérez and Carlos Sainz collided on the penultimate lap while fighting for third place -- a position Pérez had held since the first round of pit stops.

After tangling on the straight between Turns 2 and 3, both cars crashed into the barriers, causing a late virtual safety car that allowed Piastri to cross the line for victory 10.9 seconds ahead of Leclerc.

Dan Mullan/Getty Images

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Leclerc, who now has four pole position starts in Baku without a victory, led the early part of the race but appeared to be caught by surprise when Piastri lined up an overtake on the inside of Turn 1 on lap 20 of 51.

The McLaren driver then absorbed nearly 30 laps of pressure from the Ferrari, with Leclerc attempting, but failing, to retake the lead on laps 29, 31, 33, 41 and 45.

The win was Piastri's second of his career after securing his debut victory in Hungary earlier this year. It also secured the points McLaren needed to unseat Red Bull at the top of the constructors' standings for the first time this season.

The collision between Pérez and Sainz caught both drivers by surprise as they appeared to veer into one another trying to benefit from the slipstream of Leclerc in front.

Two corners earlier, Pérez looked like he had a pass secure on Leclerc for second place at Turn 1 after the Ferrari driver started to struggle with his rear tyres.

Leclerc positioned his car well to defend the position in Turn 1, and in doing so gave Sainz a run at Pérezinto Turn 2.

As they exited Turn 2, Sainz was ahead of Pérez, but the two cars touched wheels as they accelerated along the straight, sending them both into the barriers on the left.

George Russell benefitted from the collision by taking third place for Mercedes ahead of Lando Norris, who finished a remarkable fourth after starting 15th on the grid.

Norris' recovery drive saw him overtake title rival Max Verstappen on track and, in doing so, close the gap to the Red Bull driver to 59 points with seven races remaining.

Such an outcome looked unlikely ahead of the race, with Norris starting nine places behind Verstappen, but the Red Bull driver struggled for performance for a second consecutive race and was powerless to keep both Russell and Norris behind in the final third of the race.

Fernando Alonso finished sixth for Aston Martin ahead of Williams' Alex Albon in seventh after both drivers completed clean races and benefitted from the chaos ahead.

In just his second race appearance, Franco Colapinto scored his first points for Williams in eighth place ahead of seven-time champion Lewis Hamilton in ninth for Mercedes.

Substituting for Kevin Magnussen at Haas this weekend, Oliver Bearman secured the final point on offer in tenth place in just his second F1 race.

"That was probably the most stressful weekend of my life," Piastri said on his radio after the race as he thanked his team.

"I don't know what thank you in Azerbaijani is, but I'm not even going to attempt it."

After the race, the Australian described his overtake on Leclerc as a "lunge."

"I went for a pretty big lunge but I managed to pull it off and then hung on for dear life for the next 35 laps," he said. "The last couple of laps, once he [Leclerc] dropped out of DRS, were a little more relaxing but there is no such thing as a relaxing lap around here. It was hard work but goes down as one of my better races of my career."

Leclerc, meanwhile, bemoaned how his car reacted to the hard tyres.

"I think as soon as we put the hard tyres on [we struggled to fight]. On the mediums the car felt good and unfortunately we didn't do any high fuel running on my side in FP1 or FP2 and we went for a set-up direction in the race that was maybe a bit more difficult to manage," he said.

"Towards the end I really thought at one corner or two I was going to put it in the wall. It was very close. Second today, McLaren and Oscar have done an exceptional job and been better than us.

"It is a huge shame for Carlos on the last lap but hopefully everybody is OK, but not a great day for the team."