Prema Racing's Antonio Giovinazzi took his maiden pole position on Saturday in a delayed qualifying session around Baku's City Circuit in the heart of Azerbaijan.
The session, which was supposed to follow Formula 1's first practice, was delayed after concerns were raised about the kerbs, several of which appeared to come loose. It finally took place after F1's FP2 session.
Giovinazzi set a blazing laptime of 1m51.752s denying ART's Nobuharu Matsushita by 0.08s in the dying minutes of the session.
ART's second driver, Sergey Sirotkin, took P3, seven-tenths down on pole followed by Italian duo Raffaele Marciello (Russian Time) and Luca Ghiotto (Trident) to complete the top five.
The session saw a red flag when both Daniel De Jong and Philo Paz Armand ran off at Turn 3, with the latter failing to get going again.
# | Driver | Team | Time | Laps |
1. |
Antonio Giovinazzi |
PREMA Racing |
1:51.752 |
12 |
2. |
Nobuharu Matsushita |
ART Grand Prix |
1:51.841 |
10 |
3. |
Sergey Sirotkin |
ART Grand Prix |
1:52.532 |
11 |
4. |
Raffaele Marciello |
RUSSIAN TIME |
1:52.555 |
11 |
5. |
Luca Ghiotto |
Trident |
1:52.691 |
13 |
6. |
Oliver Rowland |
MP Motorsport |
1:52.739 |
11 |
7. |
Marvin Kirchhöfer |
Carlin |
1:52.756 |
11 |
8. |
Pierre Gasly |
PREMA Racing |
1:52.760 |
11 |
9. |
Norman Nato |
Racing Engineering |
1:52.929 |
13 |
10. |
Sergio Canamasas |
Carlin |
1:52.962 |
11 |
11. |
Jordan King |
Racing Engineering |
1:52.962 |
11 |
12. |
Artem Markelov |
RUSSIAN TIME |
1:53.040 |
13 |
13. |
Alex Lynn |
DAMS |
1:53.092 |
10 |
14. |
Nicholas Latifi |
DAMS |
1:53.226 |
11 |
15. |
Mitch Evans |
Pertamina Campos Racing |
1:53.401 |
13 |
16. |
Arthur Pic |
Rapax |
1:53.702 |
12 |
17. |
Daniël de Jong |
MP Motorsport |
1:54.000 |
12 |
18. |
Jimmy Eriksson |
Arden International |
1:54.034 |
12 |
19 |
Gustav Malja |
Rapax |
1:54.213 |
12 |
20. |
Sean Gelael |
Pertamina Campos Racing |
1:54.717 |
11 |
21. |
Nabil Jeffri |
Arden International |
1:55.333 |
14 |
22. |
Philo Paz Armand |
Trident |
1:57.692 |
4 |