The budget limit introduced in the Formula 1 sporting regulations five years ago turned around a championship in which there were teams that ran out of money to develop their cars from mid-course. Starting in 2021, the teams got to know El Dorado. Above all, the most powerful, such as Ferrari, Mercedes or Red Bull, which allocated budgets of more than 300 million euros annually, and which were suddenly forced to not be able to spend more than 127 million euros, less than half. In this new paradigm, builders had to create their own control mechanisms to avoid going overboard.
The good thing is that this severe restriction did not apply to the sponsors, who continued to pay the same amount to advertise on the cars, or even more, much more, as the popularity of the event skyrocketed. Under normal conditions, the brands associated with the potentially winning cars are the ones that have to give up the most, and also the ones that have the most exposure. That is, if things don't happen like this Saturday in Azerbaijan, where George Russell was the star of the grand prix, but he barely appeared on screen during the entire race to the dismay of the Mercedes sponsors.
The Briton let his hair down in Baku, in a grotesque test in itself, one day ahead of the conventional program so that the country commemorates Remembrance Day this Sunday; that offered two very different acts and that Russell dominated in all its aspects. From Friday's qualifying, in which a margin of more than eight tenths over the second was invented, to all the brawls that occurred the next day, which were not a few in the last third of the laps, which concentrated several accidents and a tumultuous restart. It was not until that moment, on the 35th lap of the 51 total, that the leader's Silver Arrow began to appear on the screen after the safety car crowded the herd following Alex Albon's crash into the barriers.
Russell had taken off like a shot and vanished into the horizon, causing the realization to focus on the skirmishes behind him. The most eye-catching, with the two Red Bulls as main actors and Max Verstappen as the star. The Dutchman, as always, did everything well. Not only for coming back from eighth place on the grid, but also for knowing how to suffer with the medium tires; for not letting Oscar Piastri's train escape, whom he overtook just after neutralization; and for managing to hug the winner to the same finish line, which he crossed only a tenth later. The podium was completed by Isack Hadjar, who got back into the car after the injury he suffered in his wrist, which led him to miss Zandvoort, Monza and Madring. This is the third victory of the season for Russell, who reduced the difference between him and Kimi Antonelli, his neighbor in the German manufacturer's workshop, by 15 points. The Italian meandered from the 16th position in which he started, to the fifth in which he finished, and remains at the head of the World Cup with a cushion of 66 points, with eight stops on the calendar still to be played. Carlos Sainz returned to score 10 tests after the last time (Canada), riding in a lighter Williams, while Fernando Alonso relived Aston Martin's groundhog day; that is, he abandoned again due to a breakdown (lap 22).
“The team has continued to believe in me during the hard times,” thanked Russell, who had not imposed himself since the caravan passed through Austria at the end of June, and who in the same race went from seeing everything done to having to swallow saliva, feeling the breath of Mad Max on his neck.
