The Mexican driver loves this circuit. He has more podiums in Baku than Verstappen and Hamilton combined. Perez broke a long-awaited streak against his teammate on Saturday by outqualifying him for the first time in 33 races.

He may have to back Verstappen from the start today, but ahead of the race, team boss Horner praised his great CV in Azerbaijan.

Christian Horner, Sky Sports:

It doesn’t make sense that it’s straights with high speeds, with obstacles, 90-degree corners, but he’s always been magical here. If he had a 24-race championship in Azerbaijan, he’d be pretty tough to beat. It’s important to take that momentum into the race.

Red Bull’s change in fortunes is remarkable, and yet despite the setback they remain leaders in both championships with just eight races remaining.

But Verstappen knows all too well how this goes. McLaren is breathing down their necks in the Constructors, while Norris is making an unlikely attempt to clinch his title.

The Dutchman lamented the team’s poor set-up during qualifying, which saw him finish sixth – behind Perez!

From the first lap I did in qualifying I wasn’t happy with the car and I just tried to drive around it. If you’re not confident and comfortable with the car on a street circuit you can’t push it to the limit and I think that’s basically what happened.

When it comes down to it, people start taking more risks. I just didn’t feel comfortable attacking because the car was just really difficult, doing a lot of jumps, losing contact with the asphalt, so not very nice. Of course I went off in the last corner, which didn’t help either, so all in all quite disappointing

The drivers will complete a few laps of the Baku City Circuit before the lights go out in just over 30 minutes. Most of the front runners will want to start on a medium tryre and then switch to a long for the final stint.

Two of the three strategies released by tyre manufacturer Pirelli are one-stops, so we’re likely to see most teams adopt this plan. Unless, of course, they want to shake things up like Norris.

The seven-time world champion qualified seventh for the race, but after running out of fuel on his fifth engine of the season, more than he was allowed to, he will start from the pit lane.

The same goes for Apline’s Esteban Ocon, after the team made changes to his car during parc fermé.

The shadows are out this morning in a warm and sunny Baku. The weather conditions for the race are dry and warm with a slight chance of rain and moderate winds. This points to a fairly mundane race considering the nature of a tight street track.

But as I said before, this circuit has a tendency to upset the pole sitter, so anything can happen here.

Leclerc fans are all too familiar with his failure to convert pole positions into wins, even at the best of times, let alone at a circuit that has a history of surprising the leader. Only two drivers have managed to convert pole positions into wins in Baku: Nico Rosberg and Valterri Bottas.

Norris trails Verstappen by 69 points in the championship and this was set to be a week where we would see McLaren’s new team orders system in full effect.

As it turns out, a poor qualifying performance has dropped the Briton way down the pecking order, although he remains hopeful despite the reality of the tight Baku circuit.

Everything has to be strategic, because you can’t overtake. There are enough cars in the back that have taken off the wing and are hoping for the best.

That makes it impossible for many cars to overtake them. The car is fast and we hope that it will come into our hands and that I will get clean air at some point. But on a street circuit everything gets stuck and you are forced to stand in a position and sometimes you can’t do much.

Charles Leclerc continued his stunning qualifying form in Baku by taking his fourth pole position on track. Meanwhile, Red Bull’s problems continued, and Verstappen in particular. And perhaps problems is an overstatement given their position.

Still, Max qualified sixth, behind teammate Sergio Perez, who is known for his love of this circuit. Oscar Piastri will be up front alongside Leclerc, while Sainz qualified third.

Where’s Lando, I hear you ask? Way down in the 17th is the answer. We’ll get to that in a moment.

Hello and welcome to Mail Sport’s coverage of this afternoon’s Azerbaijan GP from Baku City Circuit. Yesterday’s qualifying brought a few surprises, notably the performance of Lando Norris, who really needs to make up ground on Max Verstappen if he wants to win the drivers’ title.

The race starts at 12:00, but before that we will bring you the latest news and updates.