Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel claimed his third consecutive F1 pole in the qualifying round of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix. The German managed to post an impressive time during Q3 and beat Mercedes-AMG's Lewis Hamilton to the pole position by a gap of 0.179s. Starting third tomorrow will be Hamilton's teammate Valtteri Bottas, followed by Daniel Ricciardo and Max Verstappen of Red Bull coming in fourth and fifth respectively. Kimi Raikkonen of Ferrari seemed to be a top contender for the pole position during qualifying but overshot his chances at Turn 16 by being too aggressive on the throttle, losing time in the process and will start sixth tomorrow.
(Vettel and Hamilton will be starting in the front row, followed by Bottas and Ricciardo)
In the middle order, it was Force India's Esteban Ocon, who showed an impressive run and claimed the seventh spot on the grid, a second off Raikkonen, and ahead of teammate Sergio Perez. Renault's Nico Hulkenberg finished ninth but has also received a five-place grid penalty for a gearbox change and thus, will start in 14th place instead. This has allowed teammate Carlos Sainz to start ninth instead tomorrow, while Lance Stroll of Williams has also been promoted by a spot completing the top 10.
Meanwhile, Stroll's teammate Sergey Sirotkin finished 12th, and will start ahead of McLaren's Fernando Alonso and Sauber's Charles LeClerc. Much to Sirotkin's luck, the stewards did not take any action against the driver after an investigation into impeding Sauber's Marcus Ericsson in Q1.
(The Azerbaijan GP takes place on a street circuit in the city of Baku)
Haas driver Kevin Magnussen finished 15th, seventh tenths down over LeClerc, while teammate Romain Grosjean could not set a time due to a gearbox problem. Stoffel Vandoorne of McLaren was the fastest to be eliminated in Q1, while Pierre Gasly will start in 17th place after the driver nearly avoided contact with Brendon Hartley of Torro Rosso, who was dealing with a puncture in Q1. While Gasly did swerve to the right to avoid contact, the French driver ended up on the escape road at Turn 15, ruining his chances to make it into Q2.
The top five drivers will be starting the Azerbaijan GP on supersoft tyres, while Raikkonen will start on the race on ultra softs.
