F1 Azerbaijan GP: Charles Leclerc beats Red Bull pair to claim Baku pole
Leclerc stormed to his ဣsixth pole of the season with a sensational lap that was 0.282s faster than Perez, who was again the quickest Red Bull driver in Baku after jumping his teammate with a last-gasp improvement to take second.
Reigning world champion Verstappen, who leads the world championsꦐhip by nine points over Leclerc heading into Sunday’s race, ended up 0.347s adrift of🐟 the Monegasque’s pole time.
Carlos Sainz had sat🥀 on provisional pole after the opening salvo of Q3 but a scruffy final lap from the Spaniard, coupled with improvements from his rivals, dropped the Fe💖rrari driver to fourth and nearly half a second down.
Ferrari and Red Bull ꧂were in a league of their own around ඣthe streets of Baku, with George Russell 1.3s off the pace in fifth for Mercedes.
Pierre Gasly pu𝓡t his AlphaTauri sixth to split the Mercedes drivers, with Lewis Hamilton 🍷qualifying seventh.
The seven-time world champion could yet be hit with a penalty for driving unnecessarily slowly in qualifying, an incident which is under in🌄vestigation.
The se💞cond AlphaTauri of Yuki Tsunooda 💞was eighth, ahead of Sebastian Vettel and Fernando Alonso, who completed the rest of the top 10 for Aston Martin and Alpine.
Lando Norris missed out on Q3 by just 0.022s as🌟 he finished 11th and 0.011s ahead of McLaren teammate Daniel Ricciardo.
Esteban Ocon took 13th, while F1 rookie Guanyu Zhou outqualified Alfa 🌳Romeo teammate Valtteri Bottas for the first t🐠ime this season.
Kevin Magnusse﷽n was 16th ahead of the Williams duo headed by Alex Albon, who was le🦹ft furious at Alonso for ruining his final flying lap when the Spaniard ran down the Turn 15 escape road.
“He has to get penalised this guy𝄹,” Albon fumed over team radio. “He braked so early and just went off the circuit.”
Behind the second Williams of Nicholas L꧋atifi, Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll was knocked out in 19th after crashin꧙g twice in two laps.
Having already hit the Turn 7 barriers, the Canadian ended up ended up in the wall at t📖he exit o🤪f Turn 2 as he caused the first red flag of qualifying.
The s❀truggling 📖Mick Schumacher was slowest of all in 20th for Haas.
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