Leclerc, who has been on pole in Baku for the last four years, said that McLaren’s potential had been hidden by the circumstances of the session.

“I didn’t do a great job today but overall we seem pretty strong so it’s good,” he said.

“But – and there’s a big but – it looks like McLaren are in another world and I think we will all be very surprised tomorrow, because Lando didn’t finish some laps that were very, very impressive.

“So I doubt we will be in the fight with them but compared to the others it seems we are kind of in a good place.”

His opinion was backed up by Piastri’s pace on the longer, race-simulation runs later in the session.

Piastri missed some running in the first session when his car suffered an engine problem on his first lap out of the pits. A 20-minute red-flag period to repair a damaged kerb limited the impact of that on the Australian.

“A bit tricky,” Piastri said. “A bit up and down. The pace is there, just not the easiest to get the most out of it. We tried a few things in P2. We will look back and see what we can change for tomorrow. It is going to be different with tyre choices and stuff like that.”

Piastri was referencing the decision by tyre supplier Pirelli to take its three softest compounds to this weekend for only the third time this year. At both previous races when this has been the case, the pace difference between the soft and medium tyres has been marginal.

Norris said: “The track’s very different to last year and it’s a softer compound we don’t use that often – Monaco, Imola. I am behind on the learnings.

“A scrappy session from my side and Oscar’s side. He seemed to be struggling a little bit with the car as well, we will see what we can make up tomorrow.

“Ferrari were easily the quickest here last year even though Oscar won. Ferrari will be quick. Red Bull are going to be quick. They are never good on Friday. They go to sleep and then they wake up and they are quick again.”