The Ferrari driver took his first pole position of the year in his final effort of the session, 1m 40.203s, picking up the pace from a strong start to the final stages of qualifying, proving the two Red Bull drivers were unbeatable .

In the first run of Q3, Verstappen and Leclerc set the same time – both crossed the timeline in 1m40.445s, with Perez a tenth behind. Leclerc has the advantage over Verstappen in the opening zone, but the Dutchman can fight back in the remaining sections.

Leclerc was the first of the three to start his final lap, crucially reversing Red Bull’s advantage in the second sector, two-tenths faster than his first lap.

Perez was faster than Leclerc in the first stint, but was relatively slow in the second stint and could only catch Monaco on the final lap.

Verstappen’s final session was the quickest, but again the second proved to be different; the defending champion couldn’t find enough time on the remaining lap to reverse the deficit.

However, a time of 1m 40.391s was enough for Verstappen to beat Perez into the front row, who will join Carlos Sainz on Sunday.

Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing RB19

Photography: Andrew Ferraro / motorsport pictures

Sainz failed to make progress on his first lap, 1m 41.016s, but it was enough to keep Lewis Hamilton out of the second row.

The Mercedes driver improved in the third quarter but was nearly eliminated in the second, with the W14 matching the pace of the leaders in the final zone.

In the Grand Prix, where he started alongside Fernando Alonso, the Aston Martin driver suffered a mid-time loss relative to his former McLaren team-mate.

Lando Norris leads McLaren with both cars heading into the closing stages of qualifying on the back of a new update, with the Somerset-born racer in impressive form Deep Yuki Tsunoda was ahead of seventh.

Lance Stroll struggled with an unresponsive DRS and could only finish ninth ahead of Oscar Piastri – who finished the first half.

George Russell was the biggest casualty in Q2 as he was knocked out on the closing laps at Piastri and Kakuta, with the Briton failing to improve on his fastest lap to return to the top 10.

Crucially, he kept his distance from Esteban Ocon, who reported brushing the wall in a chaotic session at Alpine, and Alex Albon, who, despite his Williams’ impressive straight-line pace, Still unable to break through the drop zone. Valtteri Bottas and Logan Sargeant were the other casualties in the second quarter.

George Russell, Mercedes F1 W14

Photography: Mark Sutton/ motorsport pictures

Nyck de Vries buried his AlphaTauri on the turn 3 exit wall midway through Q1, sending out a red flag without a representative lap of the track. The Dutchman had to be wheeled back into the garage as he prepared to drive back to the track, citing brake-by-wire issues.

After the race resumed, Pierre Gasly had little to think about in practice after suffering a hydraulic leak – which was followed by also hitting the wall at Turn 3, tearing his right flank Box and part of the empennage.

Carlos Sainz, meanwhile, came close to slipping on the exit of Turn 1, but managed to free his car from the wall.

Both Haas cars were eliminated in the first part of qualifying, with Kevin Magnussen suffering engine problems earlier in the race. Although the Dane reported that the car felt good, his team told him not to take any chances and pulled him into the garage, preventing him from getting a better time from the opening stages of the session.

Alfa Romeo duo Zhou Guanyu and Bottas dominated the knockout zone, with Nico Hulkenberg on the brink of decline, with the German’s poor first stint effectively killing his chances of escaping the morning bath.

The alpha pair initially escaped the bottom five, but Piastri’s final effort was enough to push Zhou back to 16th, two hundredths of a second behind Ocon.

F1 Azerbaijan Grand Prix – Qualifying Results

Q3

Q2

Q1