Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc took his fourth consecutive Formula 1 Azerbaijan Grand Prix pole in Saturday’s qualifying session with Lando Norris suffering a shock Q1 exit.
Leclerc beat McLaren’s Oscar Piastri to the top spot by 0.321s with Ferrari team-mate Carlos Sainz in third.
Heading into qualifying the form book was wide open with the polesitter anyone’s guess.
McLaren, Red Bull, Ferrari and Mercedes were in the hunt for pole position with no clear pecking order set after practice.
Anticipation was high heading into Q1 as a result with all 20 drivers wanting to avoid an early elimination.
Baku expert Sergio Perez started the session strongly to top the timesheets early on in Q1 with all but two runners starting on the Soft tyre.
Mercedes went with Mediums for the opening run in Q1, leaving Lewis Hamilton and George Russell in 13th and 15th and by no means safe.
That prompted a Soft tyre run for the pair to ensure both drivers progressed into Q2.
Track evolution and track position saw the times tumble, positions change and a shock exit.
Sauber’s Valtteri Bottas failed to advance, despite being bolstered by a tow from his team-mate Zhou Guanyu, who will start at the back of Sunday’s grid due to a power unit change.
The two Sauber drivers managed to outqualify Esteban Ocon, who finished dead last, likely hampered by a fuel pump system that needed fixing from practice.
But the drama came courtesy of McLaren and Norris, who aborted his final run, pulling into the pits and only 17th fastest.
A potential yellow flag met Norris in the final sector, harming his race and championship prospects in equal measure.
RB’s Daniel Ricciardo joined the early dropouts in 16th.
Rookies advance in Azerbaijan GP qualifying
Where Norris’ luck faltered, F1’s rookies Franco Colapinto and Ollie Bearman advanced into Q2, finishing the opening session in ninth and 14th respectively.
Williams looked strong after Q1 with Alex Albon finishing and advancing to Q2 with the second-fastest time, bettered only by Leclerc.
Leclerc could push in qualifying safely in the knowledge his failing to slow for yellow flags in FP3 resulted in a reprimand only.
Piastri, Pierre Gasly and Yuki Tsunoda flew solo for their respective teams in Q2.
Red Bull, Ferrari, Mercedes, Aston Martin, Williams and Haas looked to get their cars into the top-10 shootout.
Ferrari’s progress was being hampered by mismanagement of the tow.
Leclerc asked when the tow would occur and the Ferrari duo aborted a run to try again as the clock ticked down in Q2.
The confusion was no matter for Ferrari as both its drivers advanced to Q3, with Verstappen topping Q2.
Bearman just missed out in 11th, but beat Haas team-mate Nico Hulkenberg who finished 14th.
Tsunoda was resigned to 12th, ahead of Gasly and Hulkenberg, with Lance Stroll 15th.
F1‘s second rookie Colapinto advanced to Q3 for the very first time with a sensational effort.
Both Williams advanced but the Argentine punched in a time four-tenths quicker than team-mate Alex Albon right at the death of Q2.
Leclerc unmatched en route to Azerbaijan GP pole
The two Ferraris, led by Leclerc, held a provisional one-two after the first runs in Q3.
Piastri put in a strong opening lap on used Softs with the Red Bulls only fifth and sixth in Perez’s favour.
Albon’s Q3 effort came to a halt ahead of his final run as he stopped in the pit-lane exit with his airbox cooling fan still attached.
The Anglo-Thai driver managed to remove the device and called for the marshall to take it from him.
Luckily for Albon, the situation was sorted with two minutes to spare, but he could only muster 10th.
Leclerc fared far better to take a sensational Azerbaijan GP pole position, three-tenths clear of the rest of the field.
As the final runs came in, Piastri and Sainz took second and third respectively ahead of fourth-placed Perez.
That left Russell to round out the top five with Max Verstappen only sixth ahead of seventh-placed Hamilton.
Aston Martin’s Fernando Alosno took eighth ahead of the ever-impressive Colapinto and Albon.
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