Valtteri Bottas claimed pole position for Formula 1’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix during an incident-filled qualifying session that was heavily disrupted 💙as Charles Leclerc crashed out.

Despiℱte appearing well off the pace of Ferrari all weekend, the Mercedes duo took advantage of Leclerc’s error in Q2 to lock-out the front-row of the grid in Baku, with Bottas ed🐠ging Hamilton by just 0.059s in what was a thrilling end to qualifying.

Hamilton had sat on provisional pole foll🌌owing the opening salvo of runs, but Bottas left it late t🌞o turn in a 1m40.495s on his final flying effort to pip his teammate to a second consecutive pole.

Sebastian ꦓVettel was unable to challenge as he ended up thꦜird and 0.302s off the pace in what turned out to be a disappointing qualifying session for the Scuderia, with Leclerc blowing a great opportunity to claim pole with his shunt.

Max Verstappen sealed an encouraging fourth on the grid for Red Bull-Honda, while Sergio Perez and Daniil Kvyat starred to take f🌸ifth and siꦫxth respectfully for Racing Point and Toro Rosso.

McLaren’s Lando Norris was two tenths back in seventh, ahead of Ant♛onio Giovinazzi, who out-qualified Alfa Romeo teammate Kimi Raikkonen in his first-ever Q3 appearance. Despite setting the eighth-best time, the Italian is set to drop 10 places for taking on new power unit components.

Despite a🔥 costly error that saw him crash out in Q2, Leclerc is set to start inside the top ten on the grid. The Monegasque driver, who had dominated for much of the weekend, slammed into the barriers at Turn 8 and caused a second red flag period of qualifying.

“I am stupid,” was the critical self-assessment from Leclerc over team radio, who cut a visibly frustrated figure as he emerged froܫm the cockpit of his w🥂recked SF90 and upon his return to the Ferrari garage.

Behind Leclerc came McLaren’s Carlos Sainz and the Renault of Daniel Ricciardo in 11th and 12th respectively,🍸 as Alexander Albon took 13th aheꦛad of Kevin Magnussen despite clouting the walls on his final run.

Pierre Gasly didಞ not venture out during an interrupted Q2 in a bid to save tyres with the French🅠man set for a pitlane start after picking up a penalty for missing the weighbridge during Friday practice.

Racing Point’s Lance Stroll, who has꧋ so far f🀅ailed to progress from Q1 this season, one again dropped out in the first part of qualifying and ended up 16th.

Romain Grosjean conceded hᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚꦏᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚe had “no pace” as he struggled to 17th in his Haas, while Nico Hulkenberg was the slowest driver barring the Williams duo as the German proved to be the biggest scalp of Q1.

The Renault driver had to abort his first qualifying run when he came across yellow flags follo⭕wing a lock-up for Hamilton, before making a costly error on his final flying effort, leaving him with a time only good enou⛦gh for 18th.

Despite completing the fewest amount of laps of any driver after being forced to sit out of second practice f🦩ollowing his drain-cover-induced incident in FP1, George Russell recovered to convincingly outpace Williams teammate Robert Kubica, who brought out a late red flag wit🧸h a heavy crash at the end of Q1.

Kubica clipped the inside wall at Turn 8 and rebounded into the barriers on the outside of the corner at the bottom of the castle section 𒈔of the circuit, bringing the session to a premature conclusion.

The accident - which delayed the start of Q2 by 15 minutes while barrier repa❀irs were cꦰarried out - destroyed the front-end of Kubica’s FW42, adding to Williams’ lengthy list of problems in what has turned into a nightmare weekend for the beleaguered outfit.