Verstappen confirms Red Bull truth, Sainz 'unsurprised' by Max

On the grid, Lawson could not hide his glee at his P3 result in the mixed conditions session which proved to be a very complex one to navigate with all the crashes and red flags.

"It was so busy. Obviously, it's still raining now. It was very busy. I said it would be, but I didn't expect it to be like that, honestly," he said.

Regarding the conditions on track, and how hard it was for him to come by that lap, Lawson said: "It's always sketchy because you see the rain coming on your visor and you can feel it and you can kind of see the gloss on the track.

Is there any hope Lawson can match Hadjar and bring Racing Bulls a podium? "It's going to be a very hard race for sure. We have a great, great starting position, but obviously we're aware of who we're fighting around us and that's what we'll be focused on."

After the red flags brought out in response to Charles Leclerc and Oscar Piastri's crashes, Sainz still stood at the top. Nevertheless, his time would not stand against Max Verstappen's efforts.

"Honestly, we've nailed the qualifying today," said Sainz. "Every time being on the right tyre at the right time and putting together some very strong laps. Obviously the moment that top car [Verstappen's Red Bull] was going to put the lap together we were always going to be those four or five tenths behind, like we are always.

"But it was only one of them which was Max, [so] not surprised." Regarding McLaren, Mercedes and Ferrari who sat beaten by Williams, he said: "And for the rest we managed to beat them and yeah we were in P2 which is great news.

Sainz then highlighted the performance he and Williams have shown in qualifying, which not always translates into points for the race. "Well I've been putting good laps together this year in qualifying. It hasn't been my weakness or my issues at all.

Sainz and Williams set their sights on the podium. "[The] plan for tomorrow, try to stick it in the podium. I think I'm going to give it my best to keep Williams at first podium. If it's possible, great, and if it's not, we will see.

After clinching pole, Verstappen shared his thoughts on his qualifying session in Baku. "Long qualifying, to be honest, with so many red flags," he said. "So it was very difficult to basically get your lap together because most of the time your tyres are not really ready or again, a red flag happens.

Speaking regarding the weekend and the progression Red Bull have shown, Verstappen said to have been pleased with the team's recent upturn in performance confirming that Red Bull had indeed found their way to better performance and therefore sweeter outcomes.

Regarding his target for the Grand Prix tomorrow, Verstappen said: "Again, [a] long race. Of course, you want to have a good start, but even then we just need to do our own race, look after our tyres because it's still quite tough on the tyres around here because of the softer compounds. And then we'll see what happens," he concluded.