F1 Azerbaijan Qualifying Results: What Happened During Qualifying?

Your Sports Illustrated guide to qualifying in Azerbaijan.

Only one Practice Session this racing weekend and we're already onto the qualifying for the Grand Prix race on Sunday.

Q1 Overview

Lewis Hamilton started the flying laps with a time of 1:43.67, followed swiftly by Esteban Ocon who was quickly overtaken by George Russell and Alex Albon who placed himself at the top of the timesheet. It's fair to say the British-Thai driver has plenty of confidence after a successful Practice Session earlier today.

Unsurprisingly, Max Verstappen quickly took the top of the timesheet by 2-tenths ahead of Ferrari's Charles Leclerc, almost 1.5 seconds faster than his Mexican teammate Sergio Perez. 

Nyck de Vries had an early end to his qualifying after he crashed at Turn 3, resulting in the first red flag of the qualifying session, and on talking to Guenther Steiner, we now know that Kevin Magnussen is having more problems, this time electrical in nature. "We think we can fix it," Haas says.

Q1 restarted with Pierre Gasly shunting the wall and with huge damage to the barrier, it was yet another red flag. "I couldn't stop the car," he said while other drivers complained of glare from the low sun.

Q1 was resumed, but Kevin's car didn't as he finished his qualifying in the pits and in the bottom five. 

Out in Q1

1. Guanyu
2. Hulkenberg
3. Magnussen
4. Gasly
5. De Vries

Q2 Overview

Fernando Alonso was the first to finish a flying lap as we were still calming down from a chaotic Q1, and as expected he set purple sectors throughout. This was quickly dominated by the Red Bull duo and Leclerc.

Lando Norris took a long time to hit the track, but according to the team, nothing was wrong with the car. 

Hamilton struggled, with him sat at risk in 10th for a long time before only rising slightly up the timesheet. Russell also struggled, with the W14 obviously being an untamed beast around the tight corners of Baku, leading to him being eliminated. 

Out in Q1

1. Russell
2. Ocon
3. Albon
4. Bottas
5. Sargeant

Q3 Overview

Verstappen was the first to put in a flying lap which saw him top the timesheet with Leclerc matching his time exactly. Hamilton managed to push himself up from P10 to P5 after his first flying lap as George watched from the pits. 

Stroll fought to P9 with his DRS not functioning correctly, but Charles Leclerc takes an excellent pole position ahead of Verstappen with Perez and Sainz on the second row.

Azerbaijan GP Qualifying Results

1. Leclerc
2. Verstappen
3. Perez
4. Sainz
5. Hamilton
6. Alonso
7. Norris
8. Tsunoda
9. Stroll
10. Piastri