The weekend started with talk of McLaren being able to break the record for earliest championship victory if it could clinch the title in Baku.

Saturday night ended with the team breaking an unwanted alternative record instead.

When Piastri ploughed into the barrier at the outside of Turn 3, he triggered the sixth red flag of qualifying, the most ever recorded for a grid-setting session in Formula 1.

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He was only one of several drivers caught out by treacherous blustery and damp conditions in the marathon two-hour qualifying session.

But McLaren is also having to push hard this weekend. Piastri’s session-ending crash and Lando Norris’s subsequent whack of the barriers together prove the team isn’t enjoying its usual advantage in Baku.

It was a highly unusual qualifying session, but the sum of all these wild variables is familiar: Max Verstappen is on pole position.

It’s a result that McLaren says has changed the complexion of the season.

VERSTAPPEN IS INEVITABLE

We shouldn’t be surprised that in the most challenging qualifying conditions around a perilous street track, Verstappen ends up on top.

The television pictures didn’t do justice to just how tricky the Baku City Circuit was in qualifying.

Track temperature was down by around 10°C compared to Friday, throwing all the assumptions about grip into the bin. It also cast doubt about Friday’s assumption that the reliable medium tyre would be best for a single lap, the soft having looked too delicate and unpredictable during practice.

More influential, however, was the wind. Gusts of up to around 60 kilometres per hour were recorded off the Caspian Sea, whipping through the city streets and blowing cars off course seemingly at random.

If you then add into the mix rain late in Q3, suddenly you have a recipe for disaster — or, more specifically, six red flags.

“It was just a very long qualifying in general with all the red flags, so you never got into a rhythm,” Verstappen said. “Trying to complete laps was already difficult enough with what was going on. Getting the tyres in the window on your warm-up lap is very tough around here.

“This track is already hard enough without anything. With the strong winds that we had today, the car was moving around a lot — understeer, oversteer in different places, even on the straight, going left to right.

“To basically nail everything, but also then the big interruptions that we had, it was just very tricky today. But luckily I think we did quite well.”

Remarkably this is Verstappen sixth pole position of the season. That’s more than any other driver, and he’s done so in a car that’s almost never had the pace outright to win a grand prix — or, arguably, even had the pace for pole in the first place.

Sunday was another demonstration of how he’s managed to accumulate that tally. There are other drivers on the grid who might be roughly as fast as him in cars that match, but the Dutchman’s feel for conditions and his responsiveness to change are unrivalled.

The four-time champion is the complete package. Even without a regularly competitive car, he remains the bar.

PIASTRI MISSES CHANCE, NORRIS MISSES A BIGGER ONE

It feels like Piastri has been behind the eight ball all weekend. There had been glimpses of speed, but whereas Norris took a step forward from his scrappy Friday performance to top FP3, Piastri never looked like finding the same polish.

Then again, he ended Saturday with the fastest time in the first sector, and when comparing his and Norris’s fastest qualifying laps, he ended up on 0.092 seconds slower than his teammate.

Conditions clearly played a role in eliciting a rare Piastri mistake, but the Australian accepted responsibility for the smash.

“I’m never one to blame it on something other than myself, and that’s what I’m going to stick with until I see something that tells me otherwise,” he said.

“Ultimately I just tried a bit too hard in turn 3. I haven’t actually looked at what I did differently, because I didn’t feel like I did that much differently, but a tiny bit can make a massive difference. I’m obviously disappointed with how I performed.

“It was just a bit difficult to get it all together. That was the biggest thing. But the potential was there.”

Piastri’s first meaningful error since almost beaching his car in Melbourne could have had calamitous consequences.

Taking himself out of Q3 without a time gave Norris a free hit to inflict maximum damage against the title leader. Trailing by 31 points, pole position with Piastri starting ninth would have given him a chance to significantly reduce his deficit and build some much-needed momentum.

He did not answer the call.

Part of the way around an edgy-looking lap, Norris slapped the barriers at the downhill left-handed turn 15. Already 0.6 seconds down on Verstappen by that point, it didn’t cost him pole, but it added around another 0.3 seconds to his lap time.

That meant what could have been fifth on the grid became seventh, just two places ahead of Piastri.

Norris refused to call it a missed chance.

“No, because I still did everything I could,” he said.

Part of the Briton’s problem was the call — which he owned — to lead the pack out of pit lane. He intended for to maximise his chance of avoiding any subsequent yellow or red flags, but he felt it meant he also got the track in its worst condition.

“It was just the wrong decision to make in the end,” he said. “If everyone else got a yellow behind because someone else went off behind me, you wouldn’t be asking me this question.

“But that’s a hindsight thing, not an incorrect one at the time.”

It was a tremendous get-out-of-jail moment for Piastri, who will start the race directly behind his teammate, from where he can limit the damage or — imagine — even end up extending his lead.

It’s a fascinating set-up. We’re so used to seeing Piastri and Norris battling over the front row and for race victories. They’re now buried in the middle of the pack — and it’s not called the ‘carbon fibre zone’ for nothing, particularly at a track that often boasts chaotic opening laps.

This could still be a title turning point, but what should have been a clear Norris advantage now hangs in the balance.

Red flag chaos plagues Baku | 01:03

McLAREN SEES TITLE RISK IN BAKU QUALIFYING RESULT

The team’s season-worst qualifying result couldn’t have come at more ironic a moment.

If this weekend looked even remotely like almost every other round this season, it would walk away with the constructors title on Sunday night.

But for the first time this season the team won’t have at least one driver starting on the front two rows.

If the drivers finish in starting order, McLaren will not win the constructors championship on Sunday.

Of course the teams title is inevitable. If not this week, it will be a formality in Singapore.

But team boss Andrea Stella sense change on the breeze. Verstappen’s pole, he thinks, signifies the beginning of a Red Bull Racing renaissance that could see the Dutchman challenge for the drivers title.

His rationale is the floor changes made in Monza appear to have unlocked new set-up possibilities in the RB21 beyond the car just suiting these high-downforce circuits.

“I would not be surprised at all that Red Bull may continue the streak that they have started,” he said, per The Race.

“Red Bull are a very serious contender to win races and a very serious contender for the drivers championship.”

Red Bull Racing itself foreshadowed after Monza that it had turned a corner — motorsport adviser Helmut Marko called it “rebirth” — but a drivers title tilt is a remarkable prediction.

Verstappen is 94 points off the championship lead. With eight rounds remaining — ignoring sprints for the moment — he would need to win every race with Piastri off the podium to have a chance.

But Stella sees risk in Red Bull Racing’s one-car approach up against McLaren’s drivers fighting each other for points.

“We are very aware of this aspect, but we let them race because they both deserve to pursue their aspirations,” he said.

“Therefore, yes, Verstappen and Red Bull are in contention for the drivers championship.”

He emphasised that team orders wouldn’t be contemplated until one driver was mathematically out of contention. But if his forecast proves accurate, Baku could be the turning point no-one expected in the title battle.

SAINZ TARGETS PODIUM FROM VALIDATING FRONT-ROW START

“Stick it on the podium.”

That’s Carlos Sainz’s target after qualifying a superb second in Azerbaijan.

It’s William’s best qualifying result since the 2021 Belgian Grand Prix and only its fourth in the last decade.

That was also the team’s previous podium, albeit no racing laps were completed in heavy rain. Williams’s last racing podium was won at this track by Lance Stroll in 2017 when the Canadian finished third.

The result was as much down to speed as it was execution. Williams astutely sent Sainz out early in Q3, having seen four red flags for the session already, and it paid big dividends, with the Spaniard taking provisional pole ahead of only the Racing Bulls drivers before Charles Leclerc’s red flag suspended the session.

When the session resumed in worse conditions, only Verstappen could beat his time.

It was a significant result not just for the team but for Sainz too, whose first year at Williams has hardly gone to plan.

He’s stuck down in 18th on the title table with just 16 points while teammate Alex Albon has accrued 70 points and sits seventh.

That difference has been down to poor execution — strategy and driver mistakes — but also misfortune.

Speaking after qualifying on the front row, Sainz said his Saturday result proves he’s still performing at a high level.

“Unfortunately this year has just been one of those years where nothing comes together when it comes to Sundays and results,” he said. “But today just proves that my speed is there – that whenever I put good laps together and nothing happens to us, I’m quick.

“Today in quali I felt good, and most importantly, we kept the car consistent through the weekend. Whenever there was a chance to put a lap together – which there were not many; I think I did in total three or four laps today in quali given the red flags – the lap was good.

“I have the speed, and as long as that is there, I don’t worry.”

If he can reach his podium target, he’ll instantly double his points. For a driver in pursuit of momentum, it could do wonders to help him end the year on a high.

HAMILTON POINTS THE FINGER IN ATTITUDE REVERSAL

Lewis Hamilton was upbeat on Friday night after topping practice day. He felt he’d turned a corner with the car and was at one with the tricky track.

He didn’t realise the seeds of another lowly 12th-place qualification had already been sown.

The team had had him use a set of medium tyres — the preferred qualifying tyre — in FP2, but that left him without enough to complete the preferred qualifying run plan.

Ferrari insisted on keeping both his remaining fresh mediums in reserve for Q3. To cover the gap during Q2, the team gave Hamilton just one set of soft tyres and told him to complete two flying laps with it.

Heavy with fuel for his first lap and lacking peak grip for his second, he didn’t even better his Q1 time and was knocked out in 12th for his fifth failure to reach Q3 this season.

“Ultimately it was just not the best execution,” he said. “I’m definitely disappointed.

“I honestly thought I was going to be fighting for the top three today. I thought I might be able to get a pole today. I’ve not felt that all year, so it’s definitely tough to be in 12th.

“But as I said, I don’t feel that’s from my driving. It’s just execution needed to be better.”

It was a marked change in posture from Hamilton, who has invariably — and often sullenly — owned up to his various underwhelming results this season. While he’s also talked about areas the team could improve through the year, this is the first time he’s strongly suggested he was let down by the Ferrari pit wall rather than the other way around.

But the result for the Briton is the same. Just as things started to look like they were coming together, he’ll start in the bottom half of the grid with plenty of work to do just to score a handful of points, never mind finish on the podium, as had been his original weekend target.