Norris ‘still hopeful’ of good result in Baku

McLaren’s Lando Norris says he is “still hopeful” of a good result in Sunday’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix despite starting the race in 16th place.

The Briton will start 10 places behind title rival Max Verstappen’s Red Bull after coming across yellow flags at the wrong moment in qualifying, which meant he did not progress beyond the first session.

Norris, who qualified 17th but gained a place when Alpine’s Pierre Gasly was disqualified for a technical infringement, is trying to close a 62-point gap to Verstappen over the remaining eight races of the season.

“It is what it is but there is a long race ahead,” Norris said. “We have got some good tyres in the bank, so yeah, try and be hopeful and see what we can do.”

But Norris acknowledged that making progress would depend on strategy choices in the race, because overtaking is difficult on the Baku street track despite the two-kilometre pit straight.

He said the fact that the slower cars in front of him had chosen to run low downforce to boost their speed on the straight would make it even more difficult.

Norris said he was “disappointed and frustrated” with the result of qualifying but insisted that there was “nothing I could change”.

“Everything is going to have to be done with strategy because you can’t overtake,” Norris said. “There are a plenty of cars at the back who have taken the wing off and hope for the best.

“That makes it impossible for a lot of cars to overtake them.

“The car is quick and we hope that will come into our hands and at some point I can get clean air.

“But on a street circuit everything gets backed up and you kind of get forced into a position and you can’t do a lot at times.

“We will hope for the best but I don’t expect anything much at all unless strategy comes into play.”

The other McLaren driver Oscar Piastri, who has been asked before the weekend to help Norris’ title bid, qualified second, behind the pole position Ferrari of Charles Leclerc.

Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz is third ahead of Red Bull’s Sergio Perez, Mercedes’ George Russell, Verstappen and Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton.

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.