George Russell led from start to finish as he dominated the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.

The victory reduced the championship lead of his Mercedes team-mate Kimi Antonelli to 66 points – from 81 – after the Italian finished fifth, although he had recovered from starting 16th on the grid.

Max Verstappen pushed Russell for the win as he took second place, less than two tenths of a second behind. Fellow Red Bull driver Isack Hadjar completed the podium by finishing third on his return to racing following a wrist injury.

Here are my ratings for how the drivers performed across the whole weekend in Baku.

George Russell – 10/10

Pretty difficult to find fault with this one. Fastest on Thursday, produced a stunning qualifying lap to take pole by more than eight tenths and controlled the race before holding off Max Verstappen under huge pressure at the end.

Max Verstappen – 9/10

His eighth place in qualifying looked poor on paper but came with genuine power and energy deployment problems. Charged through the field on Saturday, passed Oscar Piastri for second and pushed Russell all the way to the line. An excellent recovery.

Isack Hadjar – 9.5/10

What a way to return after three races on the sidelines. Out-qualified Verstappen with fourth on the grid, showed excellent pace early in the race and finished on the podium while also playing the team game when Verstappen came through.

Charles Leclerc – 7.5/10

Second on the grid was an excellent qualifying result, although a tow certainly helped him get there. Ferrari simply didn’t have the race pace to stay with Russell and the Red Bulls and fourth felt about the maximum available by the end.

Kimi Antonelli – 7/10

A weekend of two very different halves. Crashing out in Q1 was a costly and unnecessary mistake, but he responded with a patient recovery from 16th to fifth despite picking up floor damage during the race.

Lewis Hamilton – 6.5/10

His qualifying result was hurt by Ferrari’s run plan leaving him without the tow he needed, but sixth in both qualifying and the race still made for a fairly quiet weekend. Solid enough, although Leclerc had the upper hand when it mattered.

Arvid Lindblad – 7.5/10

Recovered again impressively after crashing in practice and starting 15th. Took advantage of the chaos when it came and then stole seventh from Esteban Ocon by the tiniest of margins at the finish. Goes a long way to limiting the grief he might get from punting into his Racing Bulls team-mate at Turn One.

Esteban Ocon – 8/10

A really strong race from the Haas driver after starting outside the top 10. Made some decisive moves as others fell into trouble and briefly looked set for seventh before Lindblad pinched it on the line.

Oliver Bearman – 6.5/10

Good enough to narrowly miss Q3 and stayed in the points despite losing out to Ocon during the race. Contact with Antonelli at the first restart was a slightly messy moment in an otherwise useful result for Haas.

Carlos Sainz – 6/10

The pace was encouraging and ninth in qualifying would have been Williams’ best grid position of the season but failing to slow sufficiently for yellow flags earned him a five-place grid penalty. Recovered from as low as 19th in the race to grab the final point.

Napoli midfielder Billy Gilmour missed the World Cup campaign after a heartbreaking injury against Curacao in Scotland’s final home warm-up game.

He returned to the heart of midfield alongside Lewis Ferguson and, according to former Scotland midfielder John Collins was “the catalyst for everything” in the second half.

“Straight from the start of the second half he was getting the ball, playing forward passes and following his pass to the strikers,” Collins said.

Gilmour played further up the pitch than Ferguson, “close to a creative 10” according to former Scotland winger Pat Nevin, and played 32 passes into the final third, more than any player on the pitch.

The former Chelsea man combined well with McBurnie on the edge of the box to set up a shot for himself; he slipped in Robbie Ure who opted to cross rather than shoot; and picked out Kieron Bowie with a wonderful through ball which should have resulted in a goal.

Those were just a handful of his key moments. Pocognoli spoke afterwards about the half-time tweak to bring Gilmour deeper to make it harder for Slovenia to play through them and have greater control of the ball.

“We fixed the position of Billy to be a little bit lower and to have Oli McBurnie a little bit more in his box, with two sixes and two 10s, and we were more compact to regain the ball when we lost it.

“Also, that creates some imbalance in the defence from Slovenia, where we can go through the lines with a good chance of Billy or through the depth with the chance of Kieron Bowie or with some crosses.

“He’s a fantastic player, I really like him. He’s a creative player who always looks forward, always ready to find a solution with a clear game plan, also a good presence around the box and also very good defensively.”