George Russell’s pole-to-win weekend in Baku has sparked a sharp question from former IndyCar driver and F1 TV pundit James Hinchcliffe: has the Mercedes driver “cracked the code” to outpace team-mate Kimi Antonelli?
What changed in Baku
According to the source account of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix at the Baku City Circuit, Russell took pole position and won the race. Antonelli crashed during qualifying, started 16th, and finished fifth. That earned Antonelli 10 points to Russell’s 25, and Russell reduced Antonelli’s championship lead to 66 points.
The Hinchcliffe read
On the F1 Nation podcast, Hinchcliffe contrasted Baku with earlier rounds. “What’s interesting for me is even at other tracks when George has been able to pull out good laps in practice, a good qualifying effort, in the race Kimi’s always still had the edge, even when George has won,” he said.
He pointed to moments earlier in the season: “You think back to when he passed him in Barcelona before Kimi’s car expired. He was closing down on everybody in Austria. Today they didn’t have that. Kimi did not have the pace of George. Kimi didn’t have the pace of George all weekend long.”
Hinchcliffe added that while Antonelli “missed some laps in first practice,” he still had FP2 and FP3, calling Antonelli “a professional” who “gets up to speed quickly.” Then came the key question: “What I’m really curious about is, has George cracked the code a little bit? Has he found something? Has he figured out how to get that extra step of performance out of this car? Because at no point this weekend was Kimi anywhere close to his level.”
Not a verdict—watch the next rounds
Hinchcliffe emphasized he wasn’t making a firm claim: “I’m not saying that he has,” he said, adding that Malaysia and Singapore will be telling. If Russell stays closer in race pace, Hinchcliffe suggested, “maybe he has finally started to put all the pieces together.”
