Azerbaijan GP: Lando Norris ‘still hopeful’ of good result

Leclerc’s pole was his fourth in a row at this track but he has yet to convert any into a win.

The Ferrari driver, who won the Italian Grand Prix two weeks ago, said: “Looking back on the three years I have done pole, one we had the car to be pole, but the 2021 and 2023 were particularly good laps and we were out of position, so I did not expect to win those years.

“In 2022, the engine blew up when leading – unfortunate. And tomorrow I hope the pace we have seen all weekend will still be there, but it is a completely different thing because with high fuel, tyre degradation will be a big thing so we need to be on top of this and if we are hopefully we can bring the victory home.”

Norris’ best hope for a good result is for a chaotic, incident-packed race of the kind that have been regularly seen in the past.

Sainz said: “The biggest challenge of Baku normally is when there are red flags because that breaks the rhythm of the race. I remember one year there was two or three red flags on the same race, and then you have to wait while they clear the track, and obviously that is the biggest thing.

“Then the safety cars. Here it’s very difficult to keep temperature in the tyres, so whenever there’s a safety-car restart, it’s very easy to front lock, very easy to go wide into the first three corners.

“So yeah, all these aspects make Baku an unpredictable race, because as soon as there’s one curve ball, like a safety car or a red flag, it actually generates even more chaos after, as a snowball effect.”

Verstappen, for his part, is not optimistic of coming through to challenge for victory, saying the car’s behaviour did not give him confidence to attack in qualifying.

“The way the car feels now is not good,” Verstappen said.