Bottas claims dramatic Baku pole as Leclerc crashes out

Valtteri Bottas claimed pole position for Formula 1’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix during an incident-filled qualifying session that was heavily disrupted as Charles Leclerc crashed out.

Despite appearing well off the pace of Ferrari all weekend, the Mercedes duo took advantage of Leclerc’s error in Q2 to lock-out the front-row of the grid in Baku, with Bottas edging Hamilton by just 0.059s in what was a thrilling end to qualifying.

Hamilton had sat on provisional pole following the opening salvo of runs, but Bottas left it late to turn in a 1m40.495s on his final flying effort to pip his teammate to a second consecutive pole.

Sebastian Vettel was unable to challenge as he ended up third and 0.302s off the pace in what turned out to be a disappointing qualifying session for the Scuderia, with Leclerc blowing a great opportunity to claim pole with his shunt.

Max Verstappen sealed an encouraging fourth on the grid for Red Bull-Honda, while Sergio Perez and Daniil Kvyat starred to take fifth and sixth respectfully for Racing Point and Toro Rosso.

McLaren’s Lando Norris was two tenths back in seventh, ahead of Antonio Giovinazzi, who out-qualified Alfa Romeo teammate Kimi Raikkonen in his first-ever Q3 appearance. Despite setting the eighth-best time, the Italian is set to drop 10 places for taking on new power unit components.

Despite a costly error that saw him crash out in Q2, Leclerc is set to start inside the top ten on the grid. The Monegasque driver, who had dominated for much of the weekend, slammed into the barriers at Turn 8 and caused a second red flag period of qualifying.

“I am stupid,” was the critical self-assessment from Leclerc over team radio, who cut a visibly frustrated figure as he emerged from the cockpit of his wrecked SF90 and upon his return to the Ferrari garage.

Behind Leclerc came McLaren’s Carlos Sainz and the Renault of Daniel Ricciardo in 11th and 12th respectively, as Alexander Albon took 13th ahead of Kevin Magnussen despite clouting the walls on his final run.

Pierre Gasly did not venture out during an interrupted Q2 in a bid to save tyres with the Frenchman set for a pitlane start after picking up a penalty for missing the weighbridge during Friday practice.

Racing Point’s Lance Stroll, who has so far failed to progress from Q1 this season, one again dropped out in the first part of qualifying and ended up 16th.

Romain Grosjean conceded he had “no pace” as he struggled to 17th in his Haas, while Nico Hulkenberg was the slowest driver barring the Williams duo as the German proved to be the biggest scalp of Q1.

The Renault driver had to abort his first qualifying run when he came across yellow flags following a lock-up for Hamilton, before making a costly error on his final flying effort, leaving him with a time only good enough for 18th.

Despite completing the fewest amount of laps of any driver after being forced to sit out of second practice following his drain-cover-induced incident in FP1, George Russell recovered to convincingly outpace Williams teammate Robert Kubica, who brought out a late red flag with a heavy crash at the end of Q1.

Kubica clipped the inside wall at Turn 8 and rebounded into the barriers on the outside of the corner at the bottom of the castle section of the circuit, bringing the session to a premature conclusion.

The accident - which delayed the start of Q2 by 15 minutes while barrier repairs were carried out - destroyed the front-end of Kubica’s FW42, adding to Williams’ lengthy list of problems in what has turned into a nightmare weekend for the beleaguered outfit.