Lando Norris did something in Baku qualifying lap that suggests he isn’t as brave as Max Verstappen

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Max Verstappen took his sixth pole position of the season at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix as Lando Norris qualified in seventh after failing to capitalise on Oscar Piastri’s crash in Q3.

As rain started to fall on the Baku City Circuit, Carlos Sainz may have thought he had a first pole position at Williams in the bag.

However, Verstappen had other ideas. The reigning world champion took the drizzle in his stride and set a lap 1.1s faster than McLaren’s championship protagonist in Norris.

The session marks Verstappen’s second consecutive pole position after securing the front spot of the grid in Italy a fortnight ago.

With Norris starting from seventh and Piastri in ninth, the Dutchman will be licking his lips at the opportunity of winning back-to-back races for the first time since the Spanish Grand Prix last season.

READ MORE: F1 Azerbaijan Grand Prix: how to watch Baku race, schedule and weather as McLaren could clinch championship

Max Verstappen was nine-tenths quicker in the middle sector at Baku than Lando Norris

As cameras cut to Norris amid his final flying lap of the qualifying session, the 25-year-old came awfully close to replicating the crash of Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc at turn 15, which brought out the first red flag of Q3 just minutes before.

However, speaking on Sky Sports F1’s live coverage of qualifying for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, Karun Chandhok noticed something ‘interesting’ from the telemetry comparison between Verstappen and Norris, which shows that the McLaren driver lost a lot of time in the middle sector.

Speaking to co-commentator Harry Benjamin, Chandhok revealed, “You know what’s interesting, even before Norris had that moment at turn 15, he had already lost. I’m just looking at the sector times; he had already lost nine-tenths in the middle sector to Max.”

The middle sector at Baku is notoriously tight and twisty. The castle section, starting from turn eight, features the narrowest corner on the F1 calendar at just 7.6 metres wide.

Amid the tricky conditions on the street circuit, it’s clear to see that Verstappen was simply more committed and braver through the section, which paid off greatly by the time he reached the chequered flag to take pole position.

READ MORE: Max Verstappen takes 2025 Azerbaijan Grand Prix pole as Oscar Piastri and Charles Leclerc crash

Lando Norris believes it was a mistake for McLaren to send him out of the pit lane before everyone else

Due to the dramatic nature of the qualifying session in Baku, McLaren sent Norris out before everyone else left the garage in order for the British driver to set a lap before another red flag could derail his pole position hopes.

The 25-year-old pinpoints this decision as the reason why he wasn’t able to set a faster time in the session, telling journalists in the media pen, “I don’t have a delta, so I don’t know how much I lost, two tenths maybe.

“So a couple of positions, but not the 1.1 seconds to Max. I think it was just a mistake from my side, from our side, to go out of the pit lane first.”

His grid slot of seventh, ahead of Piastri in ninth, marks the first time that a McLaren car isn’t in the top six of the grid since the opening race of the 2024 season in Bahrain.

Norris will need to keep his Australian teammate behind in Sunday’s race in order to eat away at the 31-point deficit he is currently facing in the F1 standings.