Baku started great for Liam Lawson with pole position for the Feature Race. But from there on everything went downhill for the Hitech GP driver. “It’s very disappointing to be one of the fastest on track all weekend and not come away with more.”

If everything went his way, Red Bull junior Liam Lawson could (with a little luck) be leading the championship after Baku. Instead all he left with was a retirement, 7th, 6th and four points for pole position. The Kiwi explains what went wrong (short answer: everything).

“It’s not at all what we wanted, I came into the weekend looking for a clean one and it started great with pole from Qualifying,” the 19-year-old explained. “I felt really really good about the track and the car.

“So for Race 1 I just wanted to get through the start. But then got caught up in someone else’s crash and the race ended right there.

“Race 2 was a really good race, came from P20, got to P6 and then went to change the brake bias and switched the car off. By the time I got it back on again I’d lost a couple of places. Such a shame, the pace was very good and even though I had killed the tyres on the way through we still had it with dead tyres.

“Today (Sunday, ed.) in Race 3 I got a good start but Jüri was just a bit quicker, he squeezed at the first corner so I backed out and then defended from Pourchaire. I was in front as I moved over but I guess we went into the pit lane and that is why I got penalised.

“It is what it is, I can feel it was harsh but that doesn’t change anything. I served the 10 second penalty at the pit stop and then pushed to get back, killing the tyres again to get up to 6th.

“It’s very disappointing to be one of the fastest on track all weekend and not come away with more.”