Azerbaijan Grand Prix – Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc has taken pole position for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix; his second in two races.
Leclerc set a time of 1:41.218 and was two tenths faster than second place man Lewis Hamilton in the Mercedes. Hamilton’s Championship rival Max Verstappen put his Red Bull in third place, a further tenth down the road.
Qualifying ahead of Sunday’s race was blighted by red flags which caused a number of stoppages throughout the session. Q1 was stopped twice with Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll and Alfa Romeo’s Antonio Giovinazzi both falling victim to the close walls around Baku and having to retire from the session.
In Q2, Daniel Ricciardo continued to endure a difficult season with McLaren having crashed out at Turn 4 and stopping the session. Q3 was truncated with minutes to spare when Both Yuki Tsunoda put his Alpha Tauri into the wall closely followed by Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz who locked up and spun into the escape road damaging his car.
In the final shootout for pole, it looked like Pierre Gasly was going throw up a surprise, but couldn’t keep up the pace in the final sector and ended up in fourth place.
Sainz will start down in fifth place, just 0.3s off his teammates’ time. It’ll be a tense time for Ferrari as they try to ascertain what damage was sustained to the Spaniards SF21 following his crash at the end of Q3.
McLaren’s Lando Norris starts down in sixth place, but that position looks to be in doubt as the 21-year-old is under investigation for a red flag infringement. It appears as though the session was stopped just as Norris came up to the pit entry. He carried on but crucially sped up and we will have to wait and see whether the stewards take a dim view of his actions.
Sergio Perez starts in seventh in the sister Red Bull and is just 0.3s down on his teammate. The Mexican will be looking for a good performance having topped second practice on Friday.
Fernando Alonso starts in ninth for Alpine, with a disappointed Valtteri Bottas rounding out the top ten in the second Mercedes.
Click here for full qualifying results
