Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc took pole position at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix for the fourth year in a row as title rivals Max Verstappen and Lando Norris qualified sixth and 17th.
Norris, who is trying to close a 62-point gap to Verstappen over the final eight races of the year, encountered yellow flags on his final lap in the first session and faces a difficult Sunday.
Verstappen is in better shape but could still manage only sixth fastest as Red Bull continued to struggle for pace compared to their rivals.
Verstappen’s problems – his team-mate Sergio Perez was two places ahead of him in fourth place – should have provided Norris a perfect opportunity to capitalise.
The Briton’s team-mate Oscar Piastri qualified second to Leclerc and ahead of the second Ferrari of Carlos Sainz.
But Norris’ difficulties in the first session mean he will be trying to limit the damage rather than inflict it on the Dutchman.
Leclerc, who was 0.321 seconds quicker than Piastri, will be going for his second win in a row after victory in Ferrari’s home Italian Grand Prix two weeks ago.
But despite his unmatched pace over one lap in Baku, he has never won a grand prix around the streets of the city on the shores of the Caspian Sea.
“In the past we have been struggling on race pace but this year we are better in the races so I am hopeful we can finally do it tomorrow,” Leclerc said.
Leclerc has had an incident-packed weekend, crashing in first practice on Friday and then suffering problems with his car in the second session, two problems that cost him about half his usual running time on the first day of the weekend.
“It is one of my favourite tracks. I really like it,” Leclerc said, adding that it had “not been an easy weekend”.
He said: “I was a bit not worried and I knew we had to make up some time, but the pace was always there and in qualifying it was all about trying to stay as far as possible from the walls and then in the last lap I went for it a bit more and the lap time came very nicely.”
Mercedes driver George Russell qualified fifth, with team-mate Lewis Hamilton seventh, ahead of Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso.
Franco Colapinto took ninth for Williams, ahead of British-born Thai Alex Albon, an impressive performance from the Argentine on only his second outing for Williams after being drafted in to replace the sacked American Logan Sargeant a race ago.
What happened to Norris?
Norris was on course to make it through into the second session comfortably but a yellow flag between Turns 15 and 16 meant he had to back off and the lap was ruined.
There will be questions as to whether Norris had to slow as much as he did, and he also made a mistake straight afterwards, running wide on to the kerb at the exit of the final corner.
And McLaren themselves say they have raised with governing body the FIA whether there even needed to be a yellow flag at that point. The warning signal was for Esteban Ocon’s Alpine, which was moving slowly after hitting the wall.
The FIA said that it was at the discretion of the marshals as to which flag to use and that because it is a high-speed area of the track with a blind approach, a yellow flag was appropriate, especially as Ocon’s car was damaged.
Norris said: “The lap was easily good enough but there was a yellow flag so I had to back off.
“Following is pretty much impossible around here and overtaking is a lot worse than everyone thinks.
“I am not expecting much from 17th, but we will put in a good plan tonight and do our best of course. I have been wrong, and I hope there are plenty of chances, but I’m not expecting so.”
Verstappen said: “Some changes we made going into qualifying thinking to improve the car actually made it worse.
“From the first lap I did, I was not happy with the car and I just tried to drive around it. But when you are not confident and comfortable with the car on a street circuit, you cannot push to the limit.
“As soon as people start risking more I didn’t feel comfortable to attack because the car was very difficult, jumping a lot. Of course I went off in the last corner which also didn’t help. So all in all, quite disappointing.”
Briton Oliver Bearman made a strong debut for the Haas team on his stand-in outing in place of Kevin Magnussen, who has been suspended for this race after exceeding the permitted number of licence penalty points.
Bearman qualified 11th, three places and just over 0.2secs ahead of experienced team-mate Nico Hulkenberg, despite a crash in final practice.
“I was on the limit to get into Q3,” he said. “If it wasn’t for a mistake I made in the castle section, it would have been OK. Quite disappointed in myself. Not for qualifying, more for P3, where I hit the barrier and lost a lot of laps and experience.”
Alpine’s Pierre Gasly, who qualified 13th, faces a stewards investigation and likely disqualification after his car was found to have exceeded the fuel-flow limit during the session.
