Max Verstappen cruised to victory in an Azerbaijan Grand Prix in which Oscar Piastri crashed out to open the drivers' title door for McLaren team-mate Lando Norris, and potentially the four-time F1 champion.
After crashing out in qualifying on Saturday, Piastri's weekend took another horrific twist when he did the same in the race at Turn 5 on the opening lap after dropping to the back of the field following a jump start off the line.
For Verstappen, it was another consummate lights-to-flag performance after his triumph in Italy a fortnight ago, scoring back-to-back wins for the first time in 15 months, and enabling him to close the championship gap on Piastri to 69 points with 199 available.
As for Norris, he was unable to take as big an advantage as he would have liked, with a slow pit stop proving a handicap en route to seventh position, leaving him 25 points behind Piastri.
On a day when McLaren could have clinched back-to-back constructors' titles for the first time in 34 years, it will now have to wait for the next race in a fortnight in Singapore.
George Russell overcame illness coming into the weekend to finish runner-up in his Mercedes, with a jubilant Carlos Sainz third in his Williams for his first podium since his final race with Ferrari in Abu Dhabi at the end of last season.
Result Race - Azerbaijan
Alonso punished after reacting to Piastri
On the grid at the start, there was a mix of tyres across the top 10, with Verstappen and team-mate Yuki Tsunoda on new hard rubber, along with Mercedes' George Russell. The remainder were either on new or used mediums.
On the 90-metre run-down to Turn 1, Verstappen made a superb start to retain his lead ahead of Carlos Sainz and Liam Lawson, but for Piastri, it was a continuation of his nightmare from his crash in qualifying.
From ninth on the grid, Piastri initially made a jump start. He immediately stopped, but as the car kicked into anti-stall, the field behind swept by, leaving him last into the first corner.
Fernando Alonso reacted to Piastri and was handed a five-second penalty for a jump start.
Two corners later, however, Piastri was astonishingly out of the race, locking up his fronts and ploughing nose-first into a barrier.
It sparked an immediate safety car, which ended on the fourth lap. At the restart, Verstappen again made a superb launch. Further back, Leclerc passed Norris for eighth, leaving him in a Scuderia sandwich, with Hamilton directly behind him.
Out of Turn 16, seventh-placed Isack Hadjar made an error that allowed Leclerc to sweep past initially, before Norris edged by into Turn 1. Hamilton then claimed ninth from the young Frenchman under DRS into the first corner at the start of lap seven.
After Russell passed Tsunoda on the approach to Turn 3 two laps later, the Japanese driver continued to lead a DRS train with Leclerc, Norris, and Hamilton behind him, causing a stalemate.
After 15 of the 51 laps, Verstappen had opened up a four-second cushion over Sainz, who was just over three seconds clear of Lawson. The New Zealander had both Mercedes drivers in his wing mirrors.
There was then a gap to the Tsunoda-led train, with Hadjar adrift in 10th.
Report continues below
Norris suffers slow stop
On lap 16, Russell radioed through to say he had a tyre advantage, being on the harder rubber compared to Kimi Antonelli's mediums and, therefore, the pace to get past Lawson. That was taken care of by Antonelli pitting at the end of lap 18.
In between, there was contact at the back between Williams' Alex Albon, who had just taken on a fresh set of hard tyres, and Alpine's Franco Colapinto into Turn 5, sending the Argentine spinning into a barrier, earning the Thai-British driver a 10-second penalty.
Leclerc pitted after 19 laps in a bid to jump Tsunoda, followed a lap later by third-placed Lawson, who emerged narrowly ahead of Antonelli, only for the young Italian to clear the New Zealander down the long straight.
It was not until the end of lap 27 that the next pit stop unfolded, with Sainz taking on the hard tyre, and slotting into sixth.
By lap 31, the top five ahead of the Spanish driver - Verstappen, Russell, Tsunoda, Norris and Hamilton, leaving the overall pecking order still up in the air - had yet to pit, with the Dutch driver 13 seconds clear.
From fifth, Hamilton pitted, taking on the medium tyre he had previously favoured over the weekend, slotting into ninth behind team-mate Leclerc.
Norris came in a lap later, but it was a slow 4.1s due to an issue with the front-right, leaving him behind Lawson and Leclerc, and it was pivotal.
Tsunoda followed on the next lap, and although emerging ahead of Lawson, the New Zealander swiftly moved ahead.
Russell waited until the end of lap 39, allowing him to perform an overcut and emerge ahead of Sainz. Verstappen was the last to pit shortly before Norris passed Leclerc on old rubber to move into seventh.
Hamilton did likewise on the Monégasque on lap 42 to move up to eighth. The seven-time F1 champion then soon closed behind the fifth-placed Lawson-led DRS train as he dragged along Tsunoda and Norris.
For Norris, there was no way through, leaving him to settle for an unwanted seventh.
Up ahead, Verstappen, who added the fastest lap late on to complete a sixth grand chelem, took the chequered flag by 14.6s to Russell, with Sainz a best result for Williams this season of third.
Antonelli put his European woes behind him to claim fourth, followed by Lawson in a superb fifth ahead of Tsunoda, Norris, Hamilton, Leclerc, with Hadjar 10th.
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