At the Formula 1 Azerbaijan Grand Prix, Monegasque Charles Leclerc narrowly escaped hitting one of the walls during qualifying and took pole this Saturday at the Baku street circuit, which hosts the category for the fifth time in his story. Thus, the Ferrari driver repeated what he did the previous year and will go ahead in this Sunday’s race for the sixth time in eight dates this season.
At the end of the classification he flew and scored 1m41s359/1000 to climb to the first place that his teammate, the Spanish Carlos Sainz, had until that moment, who finally came fourth after a final lap in which he skidded in a curve on the pianito and was also close to hitting the wall with his right rear tire. “This was not what I expected, because I thought that Red Bull was stronger, especially because of the problems I had in Q1 and Q2, but in the last lap everything came together,” said Leclerc.
The classification summary
Seconds after 10 minutes of Q3, the Red Bulls took second and third place, again with the Mexican Sergio Pérez ahead of the Dutchman Max Verstappen. “It has not been an ideal classification. We couldn’t start the engine and we lost a few tenths,” said Checo, whose car was slow to start as qualifying came to an end. His teammate noticed the absence on the track and lamented for not being able to accelerate behind him to take advantage of the suction, but he still saw the glass half full: “We could have done better, but being second and third is a good opportunity for the race ”.
Britain’s George Russell (Mercedes), France’s Pierre Gasly (Alpha Tauri), Britain’s Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes) and Japan’s Yuki Tsunoda (Alpha Tauri) were behind, between fifth and eighth. In the case of Hamilton, he was warned for going slower than allowed and some of his maneuvers were left for the stewards to evaluate.
Pushed to the limit at various points, Germany’s Sebastian Vettel sped past a leaky corner in Q1 and parked his Aston Martin head-on into the barriers in Q2, but none of that stopped him from qualifying in the top 10. He will start ninth and next to him will be the Spanish Fernando Alonso (Alpine).
Q2, where several drivers brushed the walls with their tires, including Leclerc -as was said at the beginning- and Verstappen, was the limit for the McLaren -Belgian Lando Norris (11th) and Australian Daniel Ricciardo (12th)-, for the Frenchman Esteban Ocon (Alpine), who will start 13th, and the two Alfa Romeos: the Chinese Guanyu Zhou (14th) and the Finnish Valtteri Bottas (15th), who was the poleman in this competition in 2019 when he was racing with Mercedes.
Q1 delivered the first hard hit against any of the walls of the weekend at this circuit and that forced the session to be interrupted for a few minutes. Canada’s Lance Stroll was attempting to return to his pit box to see if he had damage to the front of his Aston Martin after going wide of a corner and braking into fenders. However, he was unable to turn in time in another turn, turn 2, and hit again, although this time with great force and breaking the nose and the right front axle. That’s where your ranking ended.
He was 19th, just ahead of the German Mick Schumacher (Haas), who could not accelerate enough on his last flying lap because there was a lot of traffic on the track, a product of that red flag. The other Haas could not advance either and that is why the Dane Kevin Magnussen will start 16th. The other two that did not pass that instance were the Williams of Thai Alexander Albon and Canadian Nicholas Latifi.
After seven races, the top three finishers in the Formula 1 World Championship arrive this weekend separated by just 15 points and any of them could finish the weekend as the championship leader. Verstappen leads it with 125 points, while Leclerc adds 116 and Pérez, 110.
