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Welcome back to Prime Tire, where today I still can’t believe Oscar Piastri made THREE errors as poor as he did over the 2025 Azerbaijan Grand Prix weekend.
I still think he’ll end the year as world champion, but I don’t think he can now top any rankings of the Formula One field this year. Unless Max Verstappen and George Russell start crashing solo or jumping starts …
I’m Alex, and Madeline Coleman will be along later.
Russell’s respiratory raceValtteri Bottas almost raced for Mercedes
Verstappen was the winner in so many ways last Sunday. But you could also say similar for Carlos Sainz (more on him later) and Liam Lawson, who delivered a stunning weekend for Racing Bulls just when Madeline tells me (and you, here) he’s driving for his F1 career.
But if I had to single anyone out for praise from that group of good-looking millionaires we call the F1 pack in 2025 (because they hardly need the praise), it’s Russell.
Finishing second behind Verstappen from fifth on the grid, despite a rare qualifying defeat to Kimi Antonelli in the other Mercedes, might not look like much, especially in a cooler race when Mercedes should be a victory threat.
But considering how close Russell came to pulling out of this event through illness, it has to go down as a top drive.
Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff said Russell’s chest infection — picked up in a bout of flu everyone in the paddock seems to get at least once a year, given all those flights — nearly had reserve driver Valtteri Bottas in action in Baku.
“Very impressive, considering that on Friday morning it was touch and go whether Valtteri would be in the car,” Wolff said of Russell’s race. This included roaring up behind Antonelli after they came close to crashing at the early safety car restart, then overcutting Sainz with a later pit stop.
“Doing a one-and-a-half-hour race here in Baku, not putting a single foot wrong on both tires, that was a super merited P2.”
But this got me thinking of other times F1 drivers have overcome illness and still reached speeds of 200 miles per hour, lap after lap.
Let’s start with the gross one: Piastri’s manager, Mark Webber, vomiting inside his helmet at the 2007 Japanese GP. Webber was suffering from food poisoning that wet day at Fuji, but he only eventually retired when a then 20-year-old Sebastian Vettel crashed into him behind the safety car. Webber wasn’t happy.
But most other examples in recent years have been … less spectacular.
Both current McLaren drivers had horrid weekends battling illness in 2022 and 2023. At the 2022 Spanish GP, Lando Norris completed the scorching 97.7 degrees Fahrenheit race with tonsillitis. Then, for another Baku tale, Piastri was left unable to consume anything more than “about four pieces of toast for the whole weekend” due to a stomach bug over the 2023 Azerbaijan GP.
Russell himself had a tricky time at the 2023 Abu Dhabi GP, when a cough he’d picked up after a fever the previous week in Las Vegas left him “coughing every single lap.” And in the post-race news conference, too.
“But when you’re strapped into the car, you can’t breathe,” he added. “You can’t take a deep breath in to get the cough out. So, it was just constantly with me. It was pretty miserable … ”
He still finished third.
Max Verstappen won the 2021 race in Austin while very ill (Chris Graythen / Getty Images)
But what about a driver winning a race whilst very ill? The type of illness that would have a mere mortal bedridden for a few days. Inevitably, Verstappen provides an excellent example.
The 2021 United States GP was a critical moment in that year’s title fight. Verstappen had not won in three races, facing a resurgent Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes. He didn’t let on at the time, but it subsequently emerged that Verstappen was seriously ill with the same stomach problem that was limiting his then teammate, Sergio Pérez.
Verstappen has explained that he was also suffering throughout the 2021 season, experiencing blurred vision, a nasty consequence of his Silverstone crash following the controversial contact with Hamilton at the 160-mph Copse corner.
F1 is all about limit finding. And there are plenty more examples of drivers overcoming injury and tragedy from the championship’s 75-year history.
However, the commitment under pressure when a driver is far from 100 percent fit is always impressive.
Inside the Paddock with Madeline ColemanWhat happened to McLaren’s pace?
McLaren has largely dominated the 2025 season, but team principal Andrea Stella said after the Azerbaijan GP that it knew this would be “a difficult circuit,” given that the layout doesn’t play to its car’s strengths. Baku lacks the medium-speed corners where the MCL39 excels.
Only the weekend spiraled, between Piastri’s two crashes, Norris’ passing proving problematic after his poor qualifying, and a pit stop again going badly.
While Piastri made “uncharacteristic” mistakes this weekend, Stella felt Norris was hampered by getting stuck in traffic. The MCL39 for once just “wasn’t fast enough to stay close to the car ahead out of the last corner to then be able to overtake down the straight,” he said, adding that Norris felt “that the car had more to offer overall,” if he’d started higher.
The Briton ultimately finished where he started, in seventh, after getting stuck in several DRS trains. He was able to cut the gap between him and Piastri in the championship down to 25 points, but it could’ve been a bigger gain.
What didn’t help matters was that McLaren had a slow pit stop, again. Norris dove in for different tires on Lap 37 of 51, but the stop lasted 4.1 seconds — double what McLaren would usually aim for. He rejoined behind Charles Leclerc and Lawson, and even though Yuki Tsunoda pitted a lap later, the Red Bull driver emerged ahead of this group.
Stella said McLaren is analyzing whether Norris could have been ahead of Tsunoda or not with a faster pit stop.
However, he notes that the team is now working to improve its pit equipment, as “there’s still some interactions between the operator and the hardware that should be improved from a hardware point of view.”
Christian Horner on a phone call in the paddock prior to practice in Austria on June 27 (Joe Portlock / Getty Images)Horner (sort of) leaves Red Bull againExit settlement talks end
And there I was thinking Christian Horner leaving Red Bull would only disrupt the post-F1-weekend calmness once this year.
The man who was removed as Red Bull team principal and CEO after July’s British GP was only yesterday officially let go by the energy drinks giant.
Horner hadn’t carried on working at its Milton Keynes F1 base in that time. There was a two-month negotiation over the full terms of his exit, as he had a contract that ran into the 2030s.
This now fully explains the carefully worded statements that followed his surprise post-Silverstone sacking.
Luke Smith was following this story when it broke late on Monday morning in the U.K. (early hours on the East Coast).
His story includes this critical line: “One source with knowledge of the settlement, speaking anonymously as they were not authorized to discuss matters, estimated that it could be worth as much as $100 million.” That potentially covers Horner’s earnings from the years remaining on his contract.
Elsewhere, the Daily Telegraph reported that another element of the deal is that Horner will be free to start working for another F1 team in 2026’s second quarter.
And this is key. As I outlined below from Luke’s story, Horner will be eying a comeback at a senior post with another team.
Ideally, with equity in a team, which these days are pretty much all worth near $1 billion. If Horner can get this, he’ll likely recoup the level of power he enjoyed at Red Bull, but it’ll make it much harder to get rid of him again, should the need arise.
A potential $100 million payoff will help with raising funds. However, Horner will still need more capital to achieve the level of control Wolff enjoys as a 33 percent stakeholder at Mercedes. And he’d be buying with F1 teams worth a lot more than when Wolff was first spending his way into the paddock with Williams in the late 2000s.
This has all the hallmarks of a classic “Piranha Club” tale writ large. But for his sake, I hope chapter three doesn’t land on another of Luke’s well-earned leave days.
Outside the Points
🏆 After Verstappen’s stunning victory in Baku, Luke explained why McLaren fears he’s suddenly a threat again for the title that will be orange regardless of whether the Dutchman, Piastri or Norris ultimately prevail.
🇪🇸 Madeline outlined how Carlos Sainz returned to the F1 podium with Williams. It was a real feel-good moment of the Baku event.
‼️ Having started with some criticism of Piastri, let’s end on that note, from the man himself. Piastri called his Azerbaijan errors “silly” on “a messy weekend.” Still, if he wins at another track where Norris dominated in 2024 — next up at Singapore — all will be fast forgotten.
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Top photo: Mark Thompson / Getty Images