Azerbaijan Grand Prix: Picks, Prediction and Odds

The first leg in a double-header of street-circuit races takes place with this weekend's Azerbaijan Grand Prix.

Red Bull have won four of the six races staged at the Baku City Circuit and Max Verstappen arrives with a 62-point championship lead.

However, the Austrian team have been struggling for form recently, with Verstappen and last year's Baku winner Sergio Perez finishing only sixth and seventh in Italy last time.

Azerbaijan Grand Prix betting picks and predictions

Charles Leclerc to win (+500)

For once, Ferrari got the strategy just right and Charles Leclerc was able to keep a cool head and deliver a home victory for the Scuderia in the Italian Grand Prix.

No driver has won two races in a row since Verstappen's Spanish Grand Prix victory in June, but Leclerc has been in fantastic form since the summer break and will be confident this weekend.

The Monegasque driver has taken pole position in Baku for the last three years, and while faster cars have picked him off on each occasion, he looks to have better machinery at his disposal this time around.

Lando Norris is the +120 favorite and is clearly the one to beat, but the McLaren man keeps finding ways to lose and just isn't worth backing at short odds.

Oscar Piastri top 2 finish (+130)

Norris is Verstappen's closest pursuer in the championship and while he is still 62 points adrift, that is by no means an insurmountable task with eight races still to go.

However, he has won just two races all season and been outscored 110-91 by his much less experienced team-mate Oscar Piastri across the last six race weekends.

After some early-season struggles Piastri is not realistically in the championship fight, but he is massively contributing to McLaren's efforts to win the constructors' title.

And the team are clearly in no mood to treat the Aussie as a number-two driver.

Norris leads their qualifying head-to-head 13-3 after 16 races, but the Briton has a habit of fluffing his lines at the start.

None of his five career pole positions have seen him lead at the end of the first lap, and the latest instance was last time out at Monza.

Having for once made a decent getaway, Norris was muscled out of the lead at the second corner by a determined Piastri.

The pair ran second and third in the closing laps, but even when it had become clear they would not catch Leclerc for the win Piastri was not asked to move aside and hand Norris three extra points towards his title bid.

Having had to wait a race longer than Norris to get the team's latest upgrades on his car earlier in the season, Piastri is making up for lost time and he has a win and two second places from the last four races.

Surely the team will have to switch Piastri to a supporting role at some stage, but they are showing no signs of doing so yet, and a sixth top-two finish in ten races should be within the young Australian's capabilities.

George Russell podium finish (+400)

George Russell must have used up all his luck when he inherited victory in the Austrian Grand Prix after front two Norris and Verstappen took each other out in the closing laps.

Since then he has taken pole position at Silverstone but suffered a race-ending mechanical issue, been knocked out in the first round of qualifying in Hungary, and thought he had scored a brilliant win in Belgium only to be disqualified as his car was underweight.

Last time out in Italy, the Mercedes had looked to be in the fight during the preliminaries, but vying for the lead into the first corner, Russell was squeezed out and damaged his front wing.

That means Russell has collected just 16 points in the last five races, but he is clearly capable of so much more.

Mercedes have made giant leaps with their car since the beginning of the year, but the team still don't seem fully on top of the machine's foibles.

But having won three races out of four before the summer break, they cannot be discounted.

Russell's recent results in no way reflect his competitiveness and a podium finish could well be possible if he can realise his potential.

Azerbaijan Grand Prix outright odds

Lando Norris	+120
Charles Leclerc	+500
Oscar Piastri	+500
Max Verstappen	+650
Carlos Sainz	+1000
Lewis Hamilton	+1400

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This article was written by a partner sports writer via Spotlight Sports Group. All odds displayed on this page were correct at the time of writing and are subject to withdrawal or change at any time.