Double blow for Charles Leclerc who, after taking pole position for Sunday’s GP, got the better of his opponents in sprint qualifying. A second pole validated (1’41”697) this time ahead of the Red Bull of Sergio Perez (1’41”844) who beat Max Verstappen (1’41”987), guilty of a small fault in sector 2 of the Baku street circuit. The sprint race will start this Saturday afternoon at 3:30 p.m. and will take place over a distance of 100 km.
Ocon will start from the pits, Gasly 19th
Behind Leclerc, who damaged the muzzle of his Ferrari during the last flying lap, finishing at low speed in the protective tarpaulins, there are therefore two Red Bulls and the Mercedes of George Russell. The rest of the grid sees Carlos Sainz confirm that he is not comfortable on this circuit. Lewis Hamilton completes the third row. Note the 7th time of Alexander Albon and the astonishing and swift Williams.
On the Alpine side, the grimace soup is more acidic every day. Esteban Ocon, who could not have done better than 13th, disappearing in SQ2, will finally leave the pits for the two races to come (sprint on Saturday and GP on Sunday): his car has indeed been called back out of the parc fermé by Alpine to intervene on it , resulting in this double penalty.
Pierre Gasly also experienced a new nightmare. Forced to return to the pits quickly in the middle of SQ1 following an exhaust problem, the new Alpine driver will therefore start 19th as for the main race on Sunday. “I will use this race to do some laps after missing the free practice session following the fire in my car and having made a mistake in Q1 on Friday. » Difficult to imagine a worse weekend for the Blues.