Max Verstappen aims to win his first Formula 1 race if the year at the 2026 Azerbaijan GP as the 28-year-old comes into the weekend at the Baku City Circuit having dominated a karting event.
The four-time world champion hosted a last-to-first challenge for Red Bull at Silverstone in the United Kingdom in the wake of his second-placed finish behind Kimi Antonelli at the Spanish GP.
With the Dutchman known for his fierce competitive instinct, it should be little surprise that he won the light-hearted exhibition event in ruthless fashion by catching the leader on Lap 14.
Taking just 35 minutes to move through the 100 drivers ahead of him, he demonstrated the high standards professional racing drivers are capable of meeting and sustaining when it comes to outright pace and consistency.
Those are two of the 71-time Grand Prix winner’s strongest qualities but in the 2026 F1 season they have yielded him zero wins and zero pole positions, as he has had to settle for just six appearances on the podium.
That’s on course to be his lowest total since 2019 and it is far below the standards he sets for himself – but with the triumphant taste back after his karting showdown the question is now: can Verstappen win first Formula 1 race of the year at Azerbaijan GP?
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“Madrid was a good result for us,” Verstappen told media, including Total-Motorsport.com. “And the team has been working hard on taking this positive momentum to make sure we maximise the performance of the car in Baku.
“We’ve made some good steps with the car over the last few races and we have some good memories here.”
How could Verstappen win in Baku?
Whilst Verstappen stopped short of saying whether he feels he could fight for the win beside the Caspian Sea in the final European race of the campaign, his success there is undeniable.
He took a while to get up to speed around the narrow streets of Baku as he and Red Bull worked to tone down his maverick style to mould him into the methodical driving machine of today.
He found his breakthrough result in Azerbaijan in 2019 when he finished fourth before tragedy struck him two years later in 2021 when a rear-left tyre failure caused him to DNF when safely leading.
Since that date, he has appeared on the podium in three of the last four seasons with victories in 2022 and 2025 whilst he finished second in 2023 behind whilst 2024 saw an unusually off-colour showing.
It’s difficult to say whether Red Bull will have the pace to beat their rivals Mercedes, McLaren and Ferrari but the are some positive signs to point to, beginning with the internal combustion engine.
The RB22 is considered the best ICE on the grid by the FIA and accounts for 53% of the power unit, which should reward the team and their drivers down Baku’s feature attraction: a 2200-metre-long back straight.
And another indication comes from earlier in the season at the Monaco GP, where Verstappen had qualified second and missed out on pole position to Antonelli by just 0.033.
The circuit profiles between Monte Carlo and Baku are different but a common element is a driver can make the difference by being braver and leaving a finer margin to the walls whilst being more aggressive on exits. Could this open the door for Verstappen?
