Charles Leclerc will start the Azerbaijan Grand Prix after surprisingly beating Max Verstappen in qualifying on Friday.
Sir Lewis Hamilton will line up fifth on the grid for Sunday’s race at the Baku Street Circuit but his Mercedes teammate George Russell was shockingly eliminated in Q2 and will start 11th.As expected, it was a chaotic session with hefty shunts from AlphaTauri’s Nyck de Vries and Alpine’s Pierre Gasly bringing out the red flags in Q1.
Leclerc has endured a nightmare start to the 2023 season, failing to finish two of the opening three races, while his Ferrari SF-23 has been far off the pace of the Red Bull RB19.So he was naturally delighted and a little shocked to find himself on pole, saying: ‘For sure, I’m surprised – we came into the weekend thinking that it would be a great weekend if we were in front of Aston Martin and Mercedes in qualifying.
‘And at the end, we are on pole, so it’s a good surprise. We must not forget that our car is probably behind the Red Bull, so it’s going to be difficult to keep the lead. ‘But that’s the target [winning the Grand Prix]. Really happy with the lap – I mean it’s a really challenging weekend for us drivers because there’s very little time to practice – one FP1 and then we need to be straight on it.
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