A season-first triple header begins in Baku
Formula 1 opens its first triple header of the 2026 season this week, with the Azerbaijan Grand Prix the first of three races staged on consecutive weekends. The Baku street race takes place on Saturday rather than the customary Sunday, and was originally scheduled as a standalone event ahead of Singapore two weeks later. The relocation of the Bahrain Grand Prix to Malaysia in the intervening week created the three-race run, and two further triple headers are planned to close the campaign.[S1]
The Azerbaijan round therefore launches an intense autumn sequence that will carry the championship picture into mid-October. Mercedes driver Kimi Antonelli arrives with a commanding advantage at the top of the Drivers' Championship, and the coming weekends will determine whether his challengers can mount a genuine response or whether the title becomes a formality.[S1]
Antonelli's lead keeps growing
Antonelli's most recent victory, in Madrid, owed something to the timing of a Virtual Safety Car that assisted him while hampering McLaren's race-leading Lando Norris. Even so, the Mercedes driver had produced another strong weekend at the new venue and was positioned to take advantage of the break. It was his eighth win from 14 races this season, and it carried him into Baku with an 81-point lead.[S1]
After his advantage over team-mate George Russell was trimmed to 25 points at the British Grand Prix in early July, Antonelli has extended his lead at each of the last five race weekends, reaching a season-high margin. Russell remains his nearest rival but effectively accepted his title chances were gone after finishing fifth in Madrid, a result that left him more than three race wins behind. Ferrari's Lewis Hamilton had already written off his own hopes following the previous round at Monza, and was more emphatic after brake trouble in Madrid produced his first retirement of the year. Hamilton now trails by 101 points, while fourth-placed Norris, the grid's form driver alongside Antonelli, saw his deficit stretch to 106 points on a weekend in which the reigning champion was unlucky not to claim a third win in four races.[S1]
The championship arithmetic appears firmly weighted in Antonelli's favour, though the 20-year-old does not seem burdened by his status as clear favourite. He has repeatedly maintained in interviews that he is not thinking about the championship, a stance his team principal Toto Wolff describes as sincere and the most suitable approach for him. Time is nevertheless running short for any challenger to string together the results required to genuinely threaten him.[S1]
With 83 points available across this first triple header alone, including 75 from the three grands prix and eight from the Singapore Sprint, Mercedes are justified in remaining cautious for now. Should Antonelli leave Singapore on October 11 with a lead similar to or larger than his current 81 points, the odds against him becoming the sport's youngest world champion would lengthen considerably, even with as many as six rounds and 150 points still available.[S1]
What the three circuits demand
The sequence opens at the Baku City Circuit, a high-speed, wall-lined street track through Azerbaijan's capital that has regularly produced some of the season's most dramatic racing during its first decade on the calendar. Last year's event lived up to that reputation: qualifying was interrupted by a record six red flags, and the race, won by Red Bull's Max Verstappen, saw then-points-leader Oscar Piastri crash out inside six corners after also hitting the wall in qualifying.[S1]
Antonelli finished fourth on his F1 debut in Baku last season and took a podium in F2 there the year before, and he will want to avoid similar trouble as the driver to catch at a circuit where Mercedes, as at Monza, are expected to be especially strong. Sky Sports F1's Nico Rosberg noted on The F1 Show podcast that Baku differs completely from Madrid, with slow corners, long straights and correspondingly lower downforce, and argued that engine power should favour Mercedes, making them the big favourites, while suggesting Verstappen, quick at Monza, could spring a surprise.[S1]
The calendar then returns to Malaysia and the Sepang International Circuit for the first time in nine years, a venue that was a favourite among drivers and fans during its original 1999-2017 run. Ten current drivers were on the grid when F1 last raced there, with Charles Leclerc driving for Sauber in Friday practice in 2017, while Alex Albon and Liam Lawson competed there in junior series. For Antonelli, Russell and Norris, prior experience of the sweeping layout is limited to simulation, and even F1's most advanced tools cannot replicate the heat and humidity that characterise racing in tropical Sepang.[S1]
