Max Verstappen denied Carlos Sainz Jnr a shock pole position for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix with the final lap of an incident-filled qualifying session.
The red flags flew no fewer than six times as stiff winds and a sprinkling of rain made track conditions treacherous.
Oscar Piastri and Charles Leclerc were among those who crashed. Lando Norris squandered a valuable opportunity to start far ahead of his team mate, taking only seventh on the grid.
Q1
Conditions were dry but blustery as the cars joined the track for the start of qualifying. Alexander Albon was the first driver to set a time but he was also the first to come to a stop: on a subsequent run he clipped the wall at the inside of turn one, breaking his front-left suspension.
Max Verstappen, following behind him, was just able to complete the lap before the session was red-flagged. So did Lando Norris, but Oscar Piastri had to abandon his first run.
When the session resumed with 11-and-a-half minutes on the clock, Piastri wasted no time getting out to bang in a lap which got him out of the drop zone. Like his team mate and the Red Bull pair, he ran the medium tyre compound.
That proved vital, as moments after he crossed the line the session was red-flagged again. This time it was due to Nico Hulkenberg, who crashed at turn four. He damaged his front wing but was able to return to the pits.
However Andrea Kimi Antonelli found himself under pressure. He was caught out under braking at turn 16 by a gust of wind and ran wide, which left him still without a time on the board during the second suspension.
Antonelli kept his cool and delivered a clean lap when the session restarted to secure his place in Q2. Like Piastri before him, he breathed a sigh of relief as another red flag followed moments later, this time bringing the session to an end.
Pierre Gasly spun his Alpine into the run-off area at turn four. Making matters worse for Alpine, Franco Colapinto crashed as he passed by, despite his team mate’s crash necessitating yellow flags.
That ensured both were eliminated. Lance Stroll made a late improvement to avoid the drop zone, as did Gabriel Bortoleto. Esteban Ocon therefore slipped into the bottom five along with the Alpine pair plus Albon and Hulkenberg.
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Q1 result
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Q2
The red flags kept coming as Q2 began. The session was stopped before anyone had managed to set a time. Oliver Bearman clipped the wall in his Haas, which ended the team’s participation in qualifying.
Ferrari ensured their cars led the queue as the session resumed, Leclerc on the medium rubber leading out Hamilton on softs. However Leclerc immediately went off at turn one as he began his first lap, which also compromised his team mate’s run.
Leclerc eventually secured a place in Q3 despite a scruffy session which saw him clip walls and explore run-off areas. However Hamilton couldn’t conjure enough time from his soft tyres and went no further.
Neither Aston Martin driver made it any further. Lance Stroll went off at the first corner, seemingly a victim of the tailwinds which caused many drivers problems. Fernando Alonso lost the last place in Q3 to Yuki Tsunoda by less than seven hundredths of a second. Rookie Gabriel Bortoleto wasn’t able to reach Q3 again but out-qualified his team mate for the seventh round in a row.
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Q2 result
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Q3
Light rain fell as the final round of qualifying began, over half an hour later than scheduled due to the four red flags earlier in the session. As it turned out, the fifth was only moments away.
Russell gave the first sign of trouble when he slid off at turn four, but managed not to hit anything. Leclerc was not so fortunate, however. Having come close to disaster repeatedly in Q2 he arrived too quickly for turn 15 and harpooned the TecPro barrier at the exit.
When the session was red-flagged, only three drivers had set times. The Racing Bulls pair had logged laps on the softs and Sainz alone had set a time on mediums. His 1’41.595 put him provisionally on pole position by almost a second.
“You can start dancing to see if it rains a bit harder,” Sainz told his team on the radio as they waited for the session to restart.
More light rain fell before the session resumed but conditions remained dry enough for slick tyres to be used. However the track surface remained treacherous, as Piastri discovered at turn three.
The McLaren understeered sharply wide at the exit and hit the barrier with a comparable force to Leclerc’s crash. The red flags flew for a sixth time, and again no one had managed to set a time. Verstappen was just seconds away from crossing the line when the session was halted.
When Q3 started for the third time there was just three minutes and 41 seconds left on the clock. Williams could taste their first pole position for over a decade – and they came remarkably close to taking it.
Norris almost clinched pole for Sainz when he understeered wide into the barrier at turn 15. The McLaren driver kept going but he failed to beat the Williams driver’s time. Nor could Russell take it off him.
Sainz went quicker in the first sector but couldn’t sustain the improvement to the end of the lap. Verstappen, however, immediately found more time, and took pole off his former team mate by over four tenths of a second.
Lawson took a strong third while Antonelli comfortably beat Russell to fourth place. Tsunoda took a strong sixth, but the size of the opportunity Norris had missed became clear as he fell to seventh, just two places ahead of his team mate.
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Q3 result
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