Baku prepares to host the tenth anniversary Formula 1 Grand Prix. Over the past years, the Baku City Circuit has become a venue for records, unexpected victories, and dramatic finishes, earning a reputation as one of the most unpredictable tracks on the championship calendar. In 2026, one of the factors making the Baku race unpredictable is the battle for the championship: season leader Kimi Antonelli arrives at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix with an 81-point lead over his closest rival.
This was reported to “Elchi” by the Baku City Circuit.
It was noted that the race weekend schedule will also be different this year. Free practice sessions will be held on Thursday, September 24, the qualifying session on Friday, and the main race on Saturday, September 26:
“The first Formula 1 race on the Baku City Circuit, designed by Hermann Tilke, was held in 2016. That year, the stage was called the European Grand Prix. Since 2017, the Baku race has been on the calendar under the name of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix. During this period, the race did not take place only in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.”
According to the information, the length of one lap on the Baku City Circuit is 6.003 kilometers. During the race, drivers complete 51 laps, covering a total distance of over 306 kilometers. The track, which runs counter-clockwise, consists of 20 turns.
One of the most famous parts of the track stretches along the walls of the Old City (Icherisheher). At turn eight, the width of the road narrows to about 7.6 meters. Here, the proximity of the barriers leaves drivers almost no room for error. Another distinctive feature of the Baku track is its start section: there is only 141 meters between the pole position and the braking point at the first turn:
“Baku is also one of the tracks that complicates the work of teams in terms of car setup. After the narrow and slow turns in the Old City, drivers are met with long and high-speed sections. Therefore, teams must find the right balance between the necessary aerodynamic downforce in the turns and high speed on the straights. The proximity of the barriers to the track increases the cost of every mistake.
Valtteri Bottas showed just how high the speed can be on the Baku track in 2016. Driving for the Williams team, the Finnish pilot reached a speed of approximately 378 km/h. This figure remains one of the highest speeds recorded by a Formula 1 car during a race weekend to this day.
But it is not only the structure of the track that distinguishes the Azerbaijan Grand Prix. Since the first years of the race, Baku has witnessed events that influenced the results of individual races and sometimes the overall course of the championship. The 2017 Azerbaijan Grand Prix was voted the best race of the season. One of the most remembered moments of that race was the incident between Sebastian Vettel and Lewis Hamilton behind the Safety Car. 42 overtakes were recorded during the race. Daniel Ricciardo, who started from tenth place, took full advantage of all the events to win in Baku.
A year later, one of the main events occurred between Red Bull drivers Daniel Ricciardo and Max Verstappen. Teammates who fought for position several times throughout the race eventually collided and retired. Later, leader Valtteri Bottas ran over debris on the track, punctured his tire, and lost the victory shortly before the finish.
In 2021, the winner was not known until the very end. After race leader Verstappen crashed at high speed, the race was stopped with red flags. At the restart, his main rival for the championship, Hamilton, made a mistake at the first turn and ended up without points.
In 2024, the battle continued until the final laps. Although Oscar Piastri was under pressure from Charles Leclerc for a long time, he maintained the lead and won in Baku. In the penultimate lap, the collision between Sergio Perez and Carlos Sainz ended the race early for both drivers.
2025 was also not without incident. The qualifying session was stopped six times due to red flags, setting a new record in Formula 1. The session lasted 1 hour and 58 minutes, taking longer than the race held in Baku in 2024.
All this shows how unpredictable the Baku City Circuit can be. Starting from pole position here does not guarantee a victory. The long straight creates overtaking opportunities, and the deployment of the Safety Car can change all the teams’ plans in an instant.
Sergio Perez went down in history as the first driver to win the Azerbaijan Grand Prix twice, winning on the Baku track in 2021 and 2023. Max Verstappen repeated his former teammate’s feat by crossing the finish line first in 2022 and 2025. Thus, before the tenth race in Baku, both drivers have two victories to their name.
Charles Leclerc’s Baku statistics stand out for a different reason. The Ferrari driver won pole position in Baku four consecutive times in 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024. Although Verstappen ended this streak in 2025, Leclerc is still the driver with the most poles at the Baku stage. He also holds the race’s fastest lap record with a time of 1:43.009 set in 2019. Interestingly, Leclerc has not been able to convert any of his four poles in Baku into a victory. These results are further proof of how unpredictable the Baku race is.
This time, Kimi Antonelli arrives in Baku as the championship leader. The Mercedes driver won the previous stage in Madrid and has finished eight of the season’s first 14 races with a victory. With nine stages left in the season, the Italian leads his teammate George Russell by 81 points.
Baku is a familiar track for Antonelli. In 2025, the Italian driver finished qualifying in 4th place here and completed the race with the same result. A year later, Antonelli returns to Azerbaijan as the championship leader.”
It was stated that another interesting point will be the results of Verstappen and Leclerc: “If Verstappen wins, he will be the first driver to win the Azerbaijan Grand Prix three times. Leclerc, in addition to winning his next pole in Baku, will try to win a race he started from the front row for the first time.
This year, the format of the Formula 2 races will also be different. Since F2 is the only support series for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, the program for the Baku stage has been expanded. After the free practice on Thursday, two qualifying sessions will be held. On Friday, the drivers will first compete in the sprint, and then in the first main race. The second main race will take place on Saturday. This format in Formula 2 will be applied only at the Baku stage.
The 2026 race will be the tenth stage in the history of Formula 1 in Azerbaijan. The Baku race, which started in 2016 under the name of the European Grand Prix, has taken its place on the Formula 1 calendar as the Azerbaijan Grand Prix in subsequent years.
The previous nine years have shown that the situation in the Baku race can change completely within a few laps, and sometimes within a single turn. Narrow streets, long straights, and the proximity of the barriers leave drivers very little room for error. And now, a tenth race will be added to this history at the Baku City Circuit.”
