Verstappen rules in Baku, as McLaren falls apart!

As the field left the pit lane to put up some fast laps on the board, all the top drivers, but Oscar Piastri, managed to do so. This put the Australian in an awkward position, as Alexander Albon found the wall and brought out the red flag.

The Aussie driver, following the session's restart, on medium compound tyres set a lap quick enough to see himself safe from elimination, with only Lewis Hamilton staying ahead of the Australian, who had Charles Leclerc, Max Verstappen, Yuki Tsunoda and Lando Norris behind.

As Norris led Max Verstappen, Leclerc, George Russell, Hamilton and Piastri, Isack Hadjar got out of the bottom five and put himself into the top five, edging out Hamilton, Nico Hulkenberg brought out the red flag for the second occasion.

Antonelli, made it through, as both Alpine's caused a bizarre crash as the session ended and the flag dropped with Franco Colapinto finding the wall as teammate Pierre Gasly had an off. Both incidents occurred in Turn 1.

As the session got underway, Oliver Bearman clipped the wall coming out of Turn 2. This mild touch against the hard concrete wall caused his demise from the qualifying session in Baku.

Leclerc then went off at the first braking zone, locking up, and damaging his tyres. Hamilton then made a mistake on his lap which only saw him move up to P8. Leclerc's second lap also came undone, going straight on in Q3.

Hamilton improved marginally on his second run, leaving him in P10 which, as drivers improved became P12, which would be his final qualifying result. Verstappen then took the top spot, deciding to do another lap even though he was safe from elimination.

As Q3 got underway, George Russell went deep at Turn 4, with Norris coming in hot behind him. Nevertheless the yellow flags waved, which forced the McLaren driver to back out of his lap.

Then Carlos Sainz took the top spot ahead of Liam Lawson and Isack Hadjar, as Leclerc crashed at Turn 15 and the session became neutralised, giving the Spaniard a chance at pole, and the Kiwi Racing Bull's driver a shot at a front row start.

As the session resumed, no driver was able to improve. Piastri, championship leader found the wall on the exit of Turn 3 racking the number of red flags up to 6, a record in Formula 1, ending his qualifying session early, giving Norris a chance to close points gap to his teammate.

As the session got underway again, the rain kept fallin, preventing Norris from improving through Sectors 2 and 3, tipping him up to P2.

Russell demoted Norris, Lawson then took over P2, and Verstappen clinched pole in the dying moments of the session.