Charles Leclerc was fastest in qualifying for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, and Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez could start Sunday’s race behind him. Let’s see how the drivers from the top three rated Friday’s race day after the start!
Charles Leclerc took the starting position for the nineteenth time in his career, and in Baku he did it for the third time in a row. However, the Monaco side were surprised by the sudden improvement after a poor start to the season, which they did not try to hide in their statement.
“Of course I’ve been surprised ever since We came here wanting to catch up with Mercedes and Aston Martin. Come on, here we go center stage, this is a very pleasant surprise! However, we must not forget that we are behind Red Bull in the pace of the race, so it will be very difficult to maintain this place, but that is the point, Leclerc revealed to a standing ovation from the crowd. – I am very satisfied with the last lap, because this track and the whole weekend are very challenging, but fortunately the day ended well. However, tomorrow we have an even bigger challenge, as we haven’t raced on medium compound tires yet, but will have to in the sprint qualifying tomorrow. Hopefully our good pace will be enough to gain a lot of racing experience in SQ1 and SQ2.”
Max Verstappen has a track record and for a long time it looked like that would be enough for his first pole in Baku, but he ended up second. However, the Dutchman did not disappoint.
“It’s always difficult to put together a good run here, In the end I tried to do one thing differently, but it just didn’t work. Of course, it was good to start from the front, said Verstappen, but second place is not bad at all, given our usual pace in the race. “I’m looking forward to getting in the car again tomorrow morning, and I wonder if he’s there.” [a sprintkvalifikáción] How different things are. It’s important to get out of any confusion and not make mistakes, but it’s not easy here.”
His teammate, Sergio Pérez, was also close to the top two, but this time he had to settle for third, which he experienced as a disappointment.
“It was a lot of fun, especially Q1 with the two red flag stages, as it was hard to warm up the tires after that. No mistakes were allowed, which wasn’t easy because of the lack of practice opportunities, but the team did a great job. So Third place was also a slight disappointment, because there was more, but I couldn’t run a clean lap. However, this is not a bad starting point either – said Perez, who also paid tribute to Ferrari. “We knew they were going to be strong and Charles had an excellent ride.”
