For George Russell, this one felt like vindication, proof that he had "come through the other side" and was back to his best after what he acknowledged was a "real tough period" during this Formula 1 season.

The Mercedes driver's victory in the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, holding off Red Bull's Max Verstappen in one of the closest finishes in history, was his first since the end of June - seven races ago.

In that time, team-mate Kimi Antonelli has won three times, to take his tally of victories to eight for the season.

So Russell needed this, his third victory, in a year that he started as championship favourite. Instead, Antonelli has taken the season by the throat and all but crushed the life out of Russell's hopes.

Now, though, a glimmer of hope still exists for Russell, even if he is too realistic to think too much about it for now.

His win, combined with Antonelli's fifth place after what the Italian admitted was his "worst weekend of the year in terms of performance", has cut the points gap between them to 66.

That's still huge, with either seven or eight races still to go, and 25 points for a win. But it's a lot better than the 81-point margin Russell faced before Baku.

"My team-mate's had an incredible season," Russell said. "He's been pretty flawless throughout, but now we're getting to crunch time.

"But I'm just going to focus on myself. You know, if I continue delivering performances like I've done this weekend, no matter what happens towards the end of the season, I'll be happy."

With the grand prix brought forward 24 hours from the usual Sunday slot, it was an appropriate result for a man whose prowess in qualifying has earned him the nickname 'Mr Saturday'.

Russell has been through the mill in 2026. He dominated the intra-team battle last year, but the tables have turned dramatically this season, as Antonelli felt immediately at home in the new Mercedes after the biggest rule changes in F1 history, and the Briton very much did not.

For Russell, the blows have kept coming. Every apparent revival was met with another setback. Every time he felt he had made progress, Antonelli's apparently effortless way of extracting that little bit more from the car chastened him.

No experience was more painful than the Italian Grand Prix at Monza two races ago, when Russell started from the front row, and Antonelli 19th after a grid penalty.

Russell knew it was a golden opportunity to make up ground. Instead, it was Antonelli who won the race, with what will go down as one of the greatest drives in history. Russell looked on the verge of tears after that one.

But he kept the belief, and in Baku it all came together.

Russell was a man on a mission all weekend, fastest from the moment he took to the track, while Antonelli, after losing half the two hours of practice on the first day, lost his cool.

He made a mistake in qualifying, took a wheel off on an inside wall, and started 16th. There was to be no repeat of Monza, even if fifth was a very creditable comeback result.

"I felt always a step behind," Antonelli said, "and especially with the mistake in qualifying the confidence level was not high and today was about damage limitation.

"Just probably also the mindset was not in the best place. I wasn't there. I wasn't really present, especially with what happened so early on and just didn't take the same risks, especially after qualifying.

"Today was more damage-safe mode instead of full attack. I just make sure next weekend we get back in the right level."

If he does, this will go down as a blip in an otherwise stunningly impressive breakthrough season by a potential future great. But the parallels with last year are unavoidable.

In 2025, McLaren's Oscar Piastri arrived in Azerbaijan apparently in control of the championship, and possessing a big lead over team-mate Lando Norris, albeit less than half what Antonelli's is now.

But Piastri had some kind of meltdown on the streets of Baku, what he described after arriving back in the city this week as "the worst race of my career".

And after that, the wheels came off for the Australian, and he was overtaken by the end of the year not only by Norris, but also by Verstappen.

There is no reason to believe Antonelli will suffer the same fate. But he still has something to process in the few days before taking to the track again in Malaysia on Friday.

This was the first time Russell has produced a weekend like this all year, when he was simply superior. Before, even when he won, Antonelli was right there with him, sometimes even faster.

How did Russell do this? It has taken hard work and analysis on his part and with his engineers.

He hasn't been comfortable in this year's car, feeling it does not suit his driving style, so he has had to put in the effort to make the driving feel natural. And he feels he is finally getting somewhere.

Deputy team principal Bradley Lord said: "He had some difficult moments before the summer break, some soul-searching as well at points, and he's come back really strong, focused on the driving, focusing on the essentials of what he needs to do to put his weekends together step by step."

Russell said: "I'm very proud of the resilience that I and my close group of engineers have shown during the tough periods this year because there's been a lot of hard work to overcome some of the challenges, to adapt my driving style to suit this new car better.

"And F1 is so tough, you don't get opportunities to practise this, and finally it's coming to me a bit more intuitively than it once did, and I'm gaining confidence. And especially on circuits like this, it just allows you to eke out that little bit more on the brakes, get that little bit closer to the walls, and it's been a flawless weekend.

"It's been four races since the (summer) break. I've been on the front row in three of them, three podiums from the four races. I feel I can fight for victory week in, week out now."

The win was looking comfortable for a while, as he romped away at the front in the first stint while Piastri delayed Verstappen.

But two mid-race safety cars closed up the field and left Verstappen right on Russell's tail.

Russell could not shake him off, but he continued to be flawless. Even when slowing for a yellow flag on the final lap caused a loss of turbo boost pressure and left him vulnerable on the run to the flag.

"It's for sure the most dominant weekend I've had in my career," Russell said. "So that has come at a really great moment. And also to achieve it on a circuit that requires so much commitment and confidence, I'm really proud of, because it would have been very easy for me to lose the faith this season."

Mercedes have lost their early season dominance over the summer, but the Bahrain/Malaysia race will see their first big upgrade for a while.

"I'm really excited," Russell said. "That's going to be a good step forward.

"Our car has been working exceptionally well on the low-drag circuits. We've got a really efficient car, so here at Baku we've been exceptionally fast. But I think from next week onwards, we're hoping to make a bigger step to the rest of the field. But nothing's sure until we see how it pans out in reality."

And even if Antonelli cannot be anything but still a strong favourite, the same goes for the championship.

"There's much less pressure on me than there is on him," Russell said. "Yesterday was probably his first mistake of this whole season in a proper session, qualifying, race, and he still came home in P5 today.

"I didn't really consider myself in this fight for a number of races, purely because my performance wasn't strong enough.

"Now I feel like if the season were to have started today, or since the summer break, you know, I feel very much I would have been able to fight.

"Now I've got this big deficit. It can change quick. So I'm not chasing that. I'm chasing to win every race, and what will be, will be."