Leclerc hits the wall as he beats Red Bulls to pole for Baku sprint
Leclerc’s first flying lap of SQ3 was a 1m41.697s, just under two-tenths ahead of Sergio Perez’s best effort.
The Ferrari did hit the wall at Turn 5 on his final run, although it proved to be inconsequential as neither Perez or Max Verstappen could topple his time.
Perez and Verstappen improved on their second laps but remained second and third.
George Russell left it late to produce his best, toppling Carlos Sainz for fourth on the grid.
Sainz’s last lap was ruined by Leclerc’s aforementioned moment at Turn 5 and the subsequent yellow flag.
Lewis Hamilton qualified sixth for the sprint ahead of Alex Albon.
Both Aston Martins were hampered once again by DRS issues, leaving Fernando Alonso eighth and Lance Stroll ninth.
Lando Norris was tenth after missing the final shootout due to having no fresh soft tyres available.
Oscar Piastri narrowly missed out on SQ3, less than a tenth behind his McLaren teammate.
Nico Hulkenberg was once again ahead of teammate Kevin Magnussen, with the two Haas cars 12th and 14th respectively.
Esteban Ocon qualified 13th with Alpine once again struggling for overall speed in Baku.
Logan Sargeant’s crash at Turn 15 cut SQ1 short meaning he couldn’t take part in SQ2.
The red flag meant Zhou Guanyu, Valtteri Bottas, Yuki Tsunoda, Pierre Gasly and Nyck de Vries were knocked out.
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