Leclerc snatches dash pole place in Baku

F1 Grand Prix, GP Azerbaijan, Baku Road Circuit

Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc claimed pole place for the Baku F1 Dash on the Azerbaijan Grand Prix after getting the higher of the Pink Bull duo of Sergio Perez and Max Verstappen in an exciting dash shootout qualifying session.

With the primary qualifying section lasting solely twelve minutes, drivers didn’t hesitate and went out fairly early on within the session to set significant lap occasions on their solely new set of medium tyres.

Firstly of the session, Charles Leclerc continued the place he left off yesterday by setting aggressive lap occasions to prime the primary section of the primary ever dash shootout. Pink Bull gave the impression to be in good type once more with Max Verstappen ending up second. Nevertheless, his teammate Sergio Perez regarded to wrestle for tempo on the soiled monitor.

With solely 25 seconds to go, the crimson flags got here out as Williams racer Logan Sargeant ran barely vast by means of Flip 15 when passing a Ferrari, and simply caught the limitations along with his rear wheel. The session was not restarted.

The incident caught out Tsunoda, who was aggressive yesterday and appeared to be on a very good lap within the dying levels of the primary qualifying section when the session was red-flagged attributable to Sargeant’s mistake. Pierre Gasly was additionally eradicated as a result of his Alpine was hampered by a suspected exhaust leak.

Guanyu Zhou, Valtteri Bottas, Yuki Tsunoda, Pierre Gasly and Nyck de Vries had been eradicated in Q1.

Within the second shootout session, solely 14 vehicles had been jostling for place with Sargeant compelled to sit down out the session regardless of his development.

Verstappen topped the second session on one other new set of medium tyres with Leclerc ending up in P2, adopted by Perez and Sainz.

Each Mercedes managed to get by means of into Q3 with the Aston Martins additionally progressing into the ultimate a part of the shootout session. Nevertheless, Stroll wanted the assistance of his teammate Alonso with the Spaniard towing him throughout the final a part of the circuit which was sufficient to get the Canadian by means of into the highest ten.

Williams’ racer Alexander Albon continued his nice run in Baku, setting a ok time for Q3 with McLaren’s Lando Norris additionally moving into the highest ten.

Oscar Piastri, Nico Hulkenberg, Esteban Ocon, Kevin Magnussen and Logan Sargeant had been eradicated in Q2.

In SQ3, drivers had a single set of recent tyres with all of them required to make use of the delicate compound. It meant that drivers wanted to get used to the softer compound rapidly to get the most effective out of them within the all-important dash qualifying section.

Following his shock pole place from yesterday, Leclerc set a 1m41.697s amid the primary runs within the eight-minute SQ3 session which proved unassailable. The Monegasque tried a second push lap, however he put his Ferrari into the barrier at Flip 5, however solely broken his entrance wing and was capable of again it out of the wall.

On his second scorching lap, Perez crossed the road 0.15s shy of Leclerc’s benchmark to safe P2, pipping his teammate Max Verstappen.

George Russell claimed fourth on the grid for the shortened Saturday race, beating Ferrari’s Sainz and his teammate Lewis Hamilton.

Williams’ Thai driver Albon will begin the dash from seventh forward of Alonso, who was struggling amid continued DRS points at Aston Martin. The 2-time champion’s teammate was ninth quickest, whereas Norris couldn’t run in SQ3 having no units of sentimental tyres left.