@CharlesLeclerc storms to #AzerbaijanGP pole. #F1 #BakuGP

Leclerc Azerbaijan GP pole – Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc clinched his sixth pole position of the season in qualifying at the Azerbaijan GP ahead of Red Bull duo Sergio Perez and Max Verstappen.

 

 

The Monegasque driver had been off his Ferrari team-mate Carlos Sainz in the early stages of Q3, but on his last hot-lap, it turned into a solid opening two sectors to take a march over his rivals.

 

Leclerc posted the best time of the weekend with a 1:41.359 at the Baku City Circuit, on a track thought to favour Red Bull, which gave him a comfortable 0.282 gap over Perez as World Driver’s Championship leader Verstappen took third.

 

Sainz, however, backed off on his final flyer to settle for fourth place on the grid but was still nine-tenths faster than the next car behind, which was Mercedes’ George Russell.

 

Former points leader Leclerc, who has not won a Grand Prix since round three in Melbourne, was 0.05 seconds of team-mate Sainz after the initial flying tours in the top ten shootout for pole.

 

But he still held onto second as Perez tapped the inside wall when entering turn five, having already over-steered his RB18 racer on the exit of the first corner, to take third ahead of team-mate Verstappen.

 

The Ferrari’s were doing the job in sectors one and two, although the Red Bulls were quicker by 0.2 on the long main-straight to the line.

 

Sainz was the first to go for a final hot-lap but was slow through the turns five and six chicane, and was scruffy on the exit of turn seven to abort his effort.

 

This put the focus on Leclerc, who posted purple sectors one and two to have a massive half-a-second gap ahead of the long sprint towards the line.

 

Perez was able to use his Red Bull Power-Train’s badged Honda engine to close a fraction after setting two personal bests, but could not match the Ferrari and fell 0.282 seconds short.

 

This came after the Mexican emerged late for his last tour when the engine struggled to fire, which Red Bull stable-mate Verstappen questioned – who appeared to have been left without a slip-stream.

 

The trend of Verstappen trailing his Monaco Grand Prix winning team-mate continued as the reigning world champion set a 1:41.706 and wound up only 0.060 adrift.

 

Sainz was fourth and in-front of Russell, whilst AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly qualified sixth as both AT03 entries enjoyed a double Q3 appearance.

 

Mercedes’ Sir Lewis Hamilton, who suffered a brake pedal issue, porpoising and was noted by race stewards for driving unnecessarily slowly in Q2, took seventh ahead of the other AlphaTauri AT03 of Yuki Tsunoda. The Briton’s incident is currently under investigation.

 

A terrible session for Aston Martin saw Sebastian Vettel take ninth, as the four-time world champion recovered after going nose first into the barriers in the second qualifying stage after locking up at turn 15 and being lucky not to damage the AMR22.

 

BWT Alpine F1 Team’s Fernando Alonso rounded out the top ten, however, he caught Williams Racing’s Alexander Albon’s attention earlier on, when he was accused by the Thai-Briton driver of deliberately causing a yellow flag.

 

In the middle qualifying segment, McLaren Racing duo Lando Norris and Daniel Ricciardo both took 11th and 12th respectively as the former missed out on progressing to Q3 by 0.022, with his cause not helped by a late mistake.

 

The Briton’s initial effort was obstructed by tyres that were not cool enough before being held up by Hamilton at the exit of turn 12.

 

His final flying tour to make it into the top ten was undone when he went straight off at turn 15.

 

Alpine’s Esteban Ocon ended the session 13th in-front of the Alfa Romeo F1 Team ORLEN drivers Zhou Guanyu and Valtteri Bottas ended the session as the slowest of the Q2 runners in 14th and 15th respectively.

In the first qualifying stage, Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll brought out the red flags following a second shunt in quick succession, paused the session, which was topped by Verstappen’s 1:42.722 benchmark.

 

The Canadian was in a low-19th on the classification, as team-mate Vettel was up in an impressive fifth, but brought out a quick yellow flag when he hit the barrier at turn seven.

 

Stroll locked his front-left and went nose-first into the Tecpro barrier and although he hit reverse, he was given the all-clear on damage to push on another hot-lap to attempt to progress into the second segment.

 

But with two minutes and 30 seconds of Q1 left, the Aston Martin driver under-steered through turn two and smacked the inside wall to knock off his front wing and destroy his front-right wheel.

 

The session was halted for ten minutes to add to the delayed start, whilst the cars who were most at risk of elimination lined-up at pit-exit in a bid to find a clear spot on track with a potential slip-stream.

 

This saw what was a mini-race, all bar the Ferrari’s, Red Bull’s and Ocon waited to go out – with Williams Racing’s Albon, Alfa Romeo’s Bottas, Williams’ Nicholas Latifi and Haas F1 Team’s Mick Schumacher in the elimination zone alongside Stroll.

 

Schumacher was ordered to “push like hell” as Norris was told “elbows out, let’s overtake these cars.”

 

But when the German lunged on the McLaren into turn 16 on the out-lap, both drivers had their lines on the 1.35-mile long run-down to the first corner ruined.

 

Norris backed out of his lap beforehand and so did team-mate Ricciardo, but they were spared being knocked out (13th and 14th respectively) when Alpine’s Alonso went off.

 

The double world champion ran down the run-off area at turn 15 to bring out the yellow flags, in which the chasing Albon called it as foul play, accusing the Spaniard of braking early and missing the corner.

 

This left Haas F1 Team’s Kevin Magnussen, both Williams drivers of Albon and Latifi and Schumacher at the back of the grid for the Grand Prix.

 

The Haas pairing are also under investigation for an incident in Q1. with both drivers thought to be pushing their way into the queue line at the end of the pit-lane at the start of the session.

 

The qualifying session was delayed by 15 minutes to allow repairs to the Tecpro barriers following a series of crashes in the FIA Formula 2 Sprint Race.

 

You can see the full Formula 1 Azerbaijan Grand Prix 2022 Qualifying Results Classification at the link: https://www.formula1.com/en/results.html/2022/races/1126/azerbaijan/qualifying.html

 

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2022 Azerbaijan GP Qualifying – The Top Three

 

 

2022 Azerbaijan GP Pole Position – Charles Leclerc, #16, Scuderia Ferrari, F1-75, 1:41.359

“Ah – it feels good! This one I probably did not expect it because I thought Red Bull were faster but extremely happy. I’m really excited for tomorrow, tyre management is a big thing here, our race pace has done a step up so tomorrow will be very interesting.”

 

2^nd Place – Sergio Perez, #11, Oracle Red Bull Racing-RBPT, RB18, +0.282:

“Yeah, Q3 is when you go balls out and I hit the wall a couple of times. At the end we had a problem with the engine, we couldn’t turn it on, and I was out on my own with no tow, who knows how much [I lost], would it have been enough for pole, who knows.”

 

3^rd Place – Max Verstappen, #1, Oracle Red Bull Racing-RPBT, RB18, +0.347:

“The start of the lap was good but then it went away from me, tiny mistakes. Still as a team, second and third, we have a good opportunity tomorrow.”

 

In the earlier FP3 session it was Red Bull’s Perez topping the time-sheets by a narrow 0.070 seconds ahead of Ferrari’s Leclerc who was second, his team-mate Verstappen completing the top three as the other Ferrari of Sainz placed fourth in the classification and McLaren’s Norris rounded out the top five. You can see the full Formula 1 Azerbaijan Grand Prix 2022 Free Practice 3 Results Classification at the link:  https://www.formula1.com/en/results.html/2022/races/1126/azerbaijan/practice-3.html

 

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#AzerbaijanGP FP2: @CharlesLeclerc tops time-sheets ahead of @RedBullRacing duo. #F1 #BakuGP

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