Leclerc, Hamilton, and Verstappen rise to the top in qualifying for Sunday’s Azerbaijan GP.
BAKU, Azerbaijan—On Saturday in Baku, Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) took advantage of a last-minute accident to record his second pole in a row. Leclerc recorded the fastest lap of 1:41:248 as Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes) claimed second and Max Verstappen (Red Bull) came in third.
Charles Leclerc: There were two or three corners where I made mistakes, but I had a tow from Lewis (Hamilton) in the last sector But I think we would have been on pole anyway.
It was an afternoon with four red flag sessions. The chaos began at the infamous turn 15 when Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll smashed into the barriers with 14:01 left in the opening session. Five minutes later, Alfa Romeo’s Antonio Giovinazzi did the same, bringing out the second red flag.
Turn three was the other part on the circuit that caused distress. First, McLaren’s Daniel Ricciardo went into the wall in the second session, and that stopped qualifying with just under a minute to go. Then, with under two minutes to go in the final qualifying session, Yuki Tsunoda put his Alpha Tauri into the same barrier. Then, Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz Jr. did not break in time, striking the runoff area just to the right of where Tsunoda had crashed. With so little time left in the session, officials called off the rest of the qualifying and handed the pole to Leclerc.
Nicolas Latifi, Nikita Mazapin, Mick Schumacher joined Stroll and Giovinazzi in being eliminated in the opening session. Kimi Raikkonen, Ricciardo, Sebastian Vettel, George Russell, and Esteban Ocon exited the second.
Hamilton was quite impressed with his day, considering that he was able to come out unscathed from all of the incidents. “It was such a great result for us because we had been struggling all week,” he said. “I am really proud of everyone.”
While Hamilton was impressed about what he had accomplished, Verstappen was not. “It was stupid calls, to be honest, but it is what it is, and it was P3, and we still have a good car. Everything was working out fine, but it is a street circuit, and it can happen.”
For the rest in the top ten, Pierre Gasly placed fourth in his Alpha Tauri and, despite his crash, Sainz Jr. ended the day in fifth. Lando Norris took sixth in his McLaren, while Red Bull’s Sergio Perez placed a disappointing seventh. Crash-victim Tsunoda ended up eighth, while Alpine’s Fernando Alonso had his best qualifying season, in ninth.
Perhaps the biggest disappointment of the day was Valtteri Bottas in the second Mercedes. Normally a good performer at this circuit, Bottas placed 10th–his worst qualifying in quite a while.
With these many stoppages in qualifying, it will be interesting to see how the race will unfold on race day. ESPN will televise the action live starting at 8 a.m. Eastern time.
