Azerbaijan Grand Prix – Sprint Qualifying: Leclerc on pole and into the wall

The introduction of this new session offers drivers who have missed out on their first qualification a second chance. This is the case for drivers like Pierre Gasly, who hit the walls of Baku in Q1, sending him to the back of the grid for Sunday’s race. It’s a new opportunity for the pilots, but above all, an extra spectacle for the fans. The two sprint events have no impact on the main race on Sunday, and the FIA aims to encourage the drivers to push themselves to their maximum capabilities.

SQ1:

Charles Leclerc quickly confirmed his good form on the circuit.

If the first 11 minutes of the session hadn’t been disrupted by a red flag, Logan Sargeant would have crashed his car at turn 15. This incident was unfortunate for the American driver, who had shown that he had the pace to compete in the Top 10. Up until then, the only notable incidents were two off-track excursions, one from Oscar Piastri and the other from Nyck de Vries. It was a challenging session for the rookies of the 2023 season.

After a nightmarish Friday, Vendredi did not wake up from his torment on Saturday. An energy problem prevented him from continuing the session without fearing that his car would catch fire. The French driver was surrounded by the two drivers from his former team, AlphaTauri. De Vries and Gasly will start the sprint race in the 20th and 19th positions respectively, exactly the same positions they will start the race on Sunday. Comebacks that did not allow these drivers to improve their rankings.

List of eliminated in SQ1: Nyck de Vries (20th), Pierre Gasly (19th), Yuki Tsunoda (18th), Valtteri Bottas (17th), and Guanyu Zhou (16th).

SQ2:

At the end of the session, Aston Martin provided a beautiful tango performance. To assist his teammate in getting out of Q2, Fernando Alonso offered Lance Stroll a great slipstream on the main straight of the pit lane. The one penalized by this team play was Oscar Piastri. It caused a relatively absurd situation. Indeed, the regulations require the drivers to use new tires for this Q3. However, Lando Norris had already used all his soft tires this weekend. This meant that the McLaren driver who qualified in the Top 10 could not participate in this final qualifying session, while the one who remained stuck in Q2 could have.

Despite a second consecutive elimination this weekend, Esteban Ocon did not display a defeated attitude and hoped that the improvements made by Alpine this weekend would allow the blue cars to perform better in the race than in qualifying.

List of eliminated in SQ2: Logan Sargeant (15th), Kevin Magnussen (14th), Esteban Ocon (13th), Nico Hülkenberg (12th), and Oscar Piastri (11th)

SQ3:

During his first attempt, Charles Leclerc reclaimed the provisional pole position. Eager to maintain his first position, the Monegasque pushed a little too hard during his second attempt and ended up crushing his front wing against the Tecpro barriers. While this had no impact on Ferrari number 16, the yellow flag caused by this incident prevented Carlos Sainz from improving his time.

After being imprisoned in Q2 on Friday, George Russell needed to gain confidence during this sprint qualifying session and prove to himself that this first qualifying session of the weekend was just a simple underperformance and not indicative of his pace. Not surprisingly, the Mercedes driver managed to qualify in the top 10 but also beat his teammate this time. George Russell will start from 4th place, while Lewis Hamilton will be in his slipstream in 6th position.

Very impressive performance from Alexander Albon as well. The Thai driver took advantage of the great top speed of his Williams to secure the 7th best time. He qualifies ahead of both Aston Martins.

Charles Leclerc thus becomes the first pole-sitter of this new format. It is important to note that this second consecutive pole position for the Monegasque will not count in the statistics.