Charles Leclerc and Max Verstappen re-edited the duels they had in their karting era with a high-voltage battle in Baku resolved in favor of the Monegasque by just 188 thousandths. In this way, the Ferrari driver takes his first pole of the season, his third in a row in Azerbaijan, with which he will take the lead tomorrow, in the long race. Fernando Alonso, more discreet than in the three previous classifications with Aston Martin, signed the sixth place on the grid, third line, next to Lewis Hamilton and behind Carlos Sainz, fourth.
The traditional qualifying session in Baku, the first of the season that takes place on Friday (as the express classification of the Sprint Shootout –10.30am– and the Sprint Race –3.30pm– opens today), was a duel closed between Verstappen and Leclerc, as when there was maximum equality at the beginning of last year, and when they measured their potential on the karting tracks.
In the first qualifying heat, Verstappen started by setting the fastest time, with Leclerc on his back, just 218 thousandths behind, but the two red flags almost followed (for single crashes of De Vries’ Alpha Tauri and the ‘ Gasly’s Alpine) accelerated the rushes and the dance of position changes. Leclerc took first place from Verstappen by 129 thousandths, and Alonso retained third, with Pérez close behind.
Things changed in the second moto, in which Verstappen marked territory with the best time, with 215 thousandths of a margin over the Monegasque, Sainz fourth and Alonso, fifth.
The final Q3 was a delight due to the fierce battle between Verstappen and Leclerc. The extreme equality was such that both clocked the same time, nailed to the thousandth, on the first attempt: 1m40s445. In the event of a tie, the pole would go to the Dutchman for having set the time earlier. Sainz was fourth by half a second; Hamilton, fifth at 7 tenths, and Alonso would fall back to eighth, at 1.6 seconds.
The tie breaker between the Dutchman and the Monegasque was played in a single and final round. He took out Leclerc first with a stratospheric 1m40s203, two tenths off his best time. And behind came Verstappen, who was 188 thousandths behind the Ferrari. So, third pole in a row for Leclerc in Baku, where the privileged position is of little use, given the amount of setbacks that visit the race.
This Saturday sees the debut of the new express classification format (30 minutes) for the first Sprint Race of the course. An invitation to the show that invented Formula 1.
