Charles Leclerc puts his Ferrari on pole once again

A Red Bull topped two of the qualifying sessions today, but not the one that mattered and it was Charles Leclerc who topped the final one, earning the pole position for tomorrow's race. It was the Red Bull that rounded off the top 3 as Sergio Perez finished second ahead of teammate Max Verstappen. This is Leclerc's sixth pole of the season, as the Monegasque now goes back to back around Baku.

Double Trouble for Aston Martin

It was Lance Stroll that brought out the first red flag of the qualifying, as he crashed out with two and a half minutes left in Q1, Stroll ended up in the barriers not once, but twice. The Canadian collided with the barriers and managed to reverse the car back into the track. As the Canadian tried to make it back to the pits, he once again found the wall, although this time it was terminal damage to his Aston Martin. In a similar style to Stroll's first crash, it was Sebastian Vettel who was in the barriers at turn 15, although he did manage to get this car back to the pits and back out before the end of Q2.

Leclerc puts in a mega lap to take pole.

The Ferraris stepped up their game and went one and two early ahead of the Red Bull cars in third and fourth, and after the second set of laps, although the Red Bulls ended up splitting the Ferraris it was Charles Leclerc who took pole. The best of the rest was George Russel, as he finished fifth, ahead of Pierre Gasly, Lewis Hamilton, Yuki Tsunoda, Sebastian Vettel and then Fernando Alonso

Red Bull's set the tone, as Stroll blunders twice.

As the track temperature dropped throughout the first qualifying session as the sun started to set, it was the Red Bulls that rose to the top. With Verstappen leading Perez, as the Ferrari of Charles Leclerc filtered into third. On the other the end of the timing tower, both Williams, of Nicholas Latifi and Alex Albon, missed out on more qualifying action as they finished 16th and 18th respectively. Meanwhile, it was Kevin Magnussen, Stroll and Mick Schumacher that also failed to make it out of Q1.  Stroll crashed out bringing his qualification to a premature end after he hit the barriers for the second time in the session and a red flag out, which jeopardized others' qualifying strategies. Once Stroll's car was cleaned up, it left the drivers to a one-lap shootout for those looking to get out of the drop zone. The only man successful in that, was Valterri Bottas as he managed 15th in his Alfa Romeo, dropping Magnussen out of qualifying.

Perez puts in the fastest time, as the battle at the top gets tight

Perez replaced his teammate as the fastest man in Q2, the Mexican was followed by Leclerc and then Sainz as the remaining world champion could only manage 4th as well as the lightest of touches on the wall. Vettel took inspiration from his teammate in Q1, as the German found the wall. However, he did manage to get the car back to the pits and back out before the end of the session. Those who didn't make it into Q3 are as follows, Lando Norris, Daniel Ricciardo, Esteban Ocon, Zhou Guanyu, and Valterri Bottas.