Norris will try to cut into Verstappen’s lead on the talismanic ‘Checo’ track

the english Lando Norris (McLaren) will try to continue cut the lead that triple world champion Max Verstappen had (Red Bull), leader of the Formula One World Championship, in Baku, home of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, on the track where no one has better results than the Mexican Sergio Pérez, team mate of the Dutch star.

Norris, who started from pole, missed a golden opportunity to further close the gap last Sunday at Monza. He was third – just behind his teammate, the Australian Oscar Piastri– in a race won, in front of passionate Italian fans, by the Monegasque Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) and that ‘Mad Max’ finished sixth, minimizing the damage. Verstappen now leads with 303 points62 more than Lando and with 86 of his Spanish teammate Carlos Sainz: fourth in the temple of speed and fifth in the contest (with 184 units, thirteen less than Piastri).

In Baku, a week will end where the news bomb of the season happened, as it was announced the signing of Englishman Adrian Newey, the most successful engineer in F1, by Aston Martinthe team of Spanish double world champion Fernando Alonso. Newey, ‘creator’ of the almost unbeatable cars of German quadruple world champion Sebastian Vettel and Verstappen, will serve, from March next year, as the main man in charge.

The news should have a positive emotional impact on a team whose vehicle, the AMR24, It’s a far cry from last year’s car’s performance, where the Asturian double world champion – 32 times F1 winner – achieved eight of his 106 podiums in the premier category.

Alonso -ninth in the World Cup-, which in 2026, with the new technical regulations, will be eligible for a ‘last dance’ if Newey hits the mark again, he did his best to finish eleventh, but out of the points at monza. There, Argentina’s Franco Colapinto caused great sensations on his F1 debut, twelfth with the Williams he would drive until the end of the season. Which Sainz will join next year. Who will be replaced at Ferrari by the seven-time English world champion Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes).

Colapinto will try to confirm his good debut in Baku, where ‘Checo’ wants to correct the course. The driver from Guadalajara (Jalisco), last year’s world runner-up, added his fourth podium of the year in the fifth race, in China. But since then he has been unsuccessful his fortieth ‘drawer’ in the main category; and he is seventh in the World Cup, 160 points behind his Dutch teammate.

‘Checo’ is back on his talisman trackwhere he achieved two of his six F1 victories – in 2021 and last year – and where he also reached the podium three other times: in 2016 (at the premiere of Baku, that year as the European Grand Prix ), in 2018 (when he was third, again, with Force India) and in 2022, when he finished second -just as when he celebrated victories, with the Austrian team-.

Verstappen won seven of the course’s first ten races, but in the last six he was on the podium just twice – he was second in Silverstone (Great Britain) and in Zandvoort (Netherlands) -, so he also hopes to regain his form on the circuit where, two years ago, he achieved one of his 61 victories, which makes him the third most successful in history. Behind two seven-time world champions: the German Michael Schumacher91 times successful; and Sir Lewis, who with the two he added this year, raised his own record of victories in the motor division of honor to 105.

Red Bull, which revalidated the constructors’ title last year, leads by just eight points McLaren (446 against 438) in the World Team Championship. where Ferrari -high goal in Baku, where Leclerc has been on pole for the last three seasons- is 39.

mercedes was fourth, with 292; and, farther, Aston Martin -dreaming of a possible bright future- is fifth. At 74.

The bumpy and in some places very narrow urban circuit of Baku, the only one in the World Cup under sea level (the Azerbaijani capital is 28 meters below), it is 6,003 meters long and the fourth longest in the championship, behind Spa (Belgium), Las Vegas (USA) and Jeddah (Saudi Arabia). It has twenty curves – 12 on the left -, some of them are slow; two DRS zones and one of the longest straights in the World Championship, 2.2 kilometers.

Brakes play a major role on the World Championship track where gears are changed frequently (64 per lap) and where the safety car is likely to enter. Where from this Friday, when the free practice starts, we will ride with tires from the softest range of compounds: C3 -hard, recognizable by the white stripe-, C4 -medium, yellow stripe- and C5 -soft, red -.

Practice will be completed on Saturday, hours before qualifying, which will dictate the starting line-up for Sunday’s race: planned for 51 laps to complete a route of 306 kilometers.

It will not film in Baku Kevin Magnussenwho exceeded twelve penalty points on his license when he was sanctioned at Monza. 19-year-old Englishman Oliver Bearman, who will be the official driver for that team in 2025, will ride in Dane’s Haas in Baku.

‘Ollie’ will be competing in his second F1 Grand Prix; after replacing Sainz in Jeddah, who had emergency surgery for appendicitis, just two weeks before signing, Melbourne (Australia), his third victory in the main category. The talented driver from Madrid will be looking for his twenty-fourth podium this weekend, on the shores of the Caspian Sea.