Charles Leclerc takes pole in Baku once again after going three tenths faster than Piastri in Q3, whilst McLaren’s Lando Norris starts tomorrow’s race in 17th.
Q1
The Baku street circuit is known for its difficulty, with walls coming at you thick and fast as drivers make their way round such a fast track. The danger was well presented by Bearman and Colapinto early on in the session, with both getting awfully close to ending their day early as they pushed their cars to the limit.
Track evolution is also a significant factor on a street circuit, and it was no different here. Before the amount of rubber on the circuit began to plateau in Q2, the running order was very difficult to determine, and it benefitted those who were the last ones to set their times, though of course doing that runs the risk of being at the mercy of yellow and red flags.
McLaren hadn’t quite looked like their usual selves during the practice sessions, but they were still seemingly towards the top end of the grid. Coming into qualifying, they were still having issues in extracting pace from their car, and this came back to bite Norris. There appeared to be a brief yellow flag in sector 3 as Norris came around, and with him slowing down as a result, he would get knocked out in Q1 and start tomorrow’s race in 17th.
ELIMINATED
16. Daniel Ricciardo – RB +0.075
17. Lando Norris – McLaren +0.137
18. Valtteri Bottas – Kick Sauber +0.146
19. Zhou Guanyu – Kick Sauber +0.774
20. Esteban Ocon – Alpine +1.032
Q2
Franco Colapinto showed himself to be quite a capable driver with a strong race performance in Monza two weeks ago. After making it into Q2 rather comfortably, he was able to blitz through to Q3 by going 5th fastest, whilst Albon was also able to make it through to the final qualifying session, but only in 10th.
The other rookie for this weekend in Ollie Bearman also appeared to have the number of his more senior teammate this weekend. Whilst both he and Hulkenberg were knocked out in Q2, Bearman only narrowly missed out by a very thin margin, and was heard on the radio berating himself, seemingly feeling he could have definitely gone faster.
ELIMINATED
11. Ollie Bearman – Haas +0.128
12.Yuki Tsunoda – Alpha Tauri +0.195
13. Pierre Gasly – Alpine +0.339
14. Nico Hulkenberg – Haas +0.351
15. Lance Stroll – Aston Martin +0.564
Q3
Charles Leclerc and Ferrari were looking as strong as they had done all weekend up to this point, and took the early provisional pole position ahead of Sainz and Piastri. Despite looking like a threat for pole himself in Q1 and Q2, Verstappen was only able to get 6th at this point in time.
The final runs in Q3 were almost ruined as Williams made a farcical error by not removing Albon’s airbox before sending him out. This meant that that section would have had double waved yellow flags, and potentially threatened a red flag, though Albon was able to remove it himself and get back running again, though not with enough time to set another lap.
The final flying laps saw Piastri improve marginally on his time, bringing him onto the front row ahead of Sainz, though Leclerc was just out of reach. Leclerc would himself improve by a strong margin, making himself untouchable for the rest of the grid.
Verstappen was able to improve by one position to get into 5th place, but was then knocked back moments later after teammate Sergio Perez, who has historically done very well at this track, climbed up into 4th, putting Verstappen back in 6th. This marks the first time that Perez has outqualified Verstappen this season.
Qualifying results
1. Charles Leclerc – Ferrari 1:41.365
2. Oscar Piastri– McLaren +0.321
3. Carlos Sainz – Ferrari +0.440
4. Sergio Perez – Red Bull +0.448
5. George Russell – Mercedes +0.509
6. Max Verstappen – Red Bull +0.658
7. Lewis Hamilton – Mercedes +0.924
8. Fernando Alonso – Aston Martin +1.004
9. Franco Colapinto – Williams +1.165
10. Alex Albon – Williams +1.494
