Ferrari star Sebastian Vettel is confident his team can put title rivals Mercedes under immense pressure when they compete in Sunday’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix.

The Scuderia were expected to control qualifying on Saturday after Vettel and Charles Leclerc had dominated practice but Mercedes ace Valtteri Bottas claimed pole.

Briton Lewis Hamilton took second, with Vettel able to grab third but there was no such luck for Leclerc after he crashed out in Q2.

Despite the setback, Vettel has refused to give up and is hoping to use previous results as motivation.
Only once has a pole sitter finished on the podium in Baku, with Nico Rosberg delivering the goods in 2016. When asked if his team can respond, Vettel told Sky F1:

“As a team we can recover tomorrow, hopefully we can put a lot of pressure on Mercedes and make them crack.

“It’s a long race, anything can happen. Even if you start way back you can be in a good position to hunt for points. “I think there is a pattern emerging. I think we were in a lot better place here considering that the corners are fairly low speed, we were much more competitive, but we are not yet there otherwise the picture would be different.

“Obviously it’s a shame that we lost one car, especially as he was very quick this weekend, now we look forward to the race and I’m sure we can recover.”

Hamilton remains the 2.50 favourite to win the race this weekend, while Vettel is 3.80 and pole-sitter Bottas can be backed at odds of 3.20.