Leclerc snatches sprint pole position in Baku

Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc claimed pole position for the Baku F1 Sprint on the Azerbaijan Grand Prix after getting the higher of the Red Bull duo of Sergio Perez and Max Verstappen in an exhilarating sprint shootout qualifying session.

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

At the beginning 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 sprint shootout. Red Bull gave the impression to be in good kind once more with Max Verstappen ending up second. However, his teammate Sergio Perez seemed to wrestle for tempo on the soiled observe.

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

The incident caught out Tsunoda, who was aggressive yesterday and on an excellent lap in the dying phases of the primary qualifying section when the session was red-flagged as a result of 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 have been eradicated in Q1.

In the second shootout session, solely 14 vehicles have been jostling for position with Sargeant pressured 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.

Both Mercedes managed to get by way of into Q3 with the Aston Martins additionally progressing into the ultimate a part of the shootout session. However, 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 way of into the highest ten.

Williams’ racer Alexander Albon continued his nice run in Baku, setting a adequate 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 have been eradicated in Q2.

In SQ3, drivers had a single set of recent tyres with all of them required to make use of the gentle compound. It meant that drivers wanted to get used to the softer compound rapidly to get the very best out of them in the all-important sprint qualifying section.

Following his shock pole position from yesterday, Leclerc set a 1m41.697s amid the primary runs in the eight-minute SQ3 session which proved unassailable. The Monegasque tried a second push lap, however he put his Ferrari into the barrier at Turn 5, however solely broken his entrance wing and was in a position to 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 sprint from seventh forward of Alonso, who was struggling amid continued DRS points at Aston Martin. The two-time champion’s teammate was ninth quickest, whereas Norris couldn’t run in SQ3 having no units of soppy tyres left.