George Russell is 81 points behind Kimi Antonelli in the drivers’ championship, and tomorrow he starts on pole, eight tenths clear of the field. Antonelli will be starting sixteenth. He probably won’t get a better chance than this.
Just to briefly cover FP3, Verstappen topped the session and denied Russell the practice sweep with a 1:43.922, beating him by 0.099s, with Hamilton third at +0.111. Three teams inside a tenth, after Mercedes had looked half a second clear on Thursday. Stroll hit the wall, and Russell locked up at Turn 7 and only just missed the barrier. And on top of that, Sainz received a reprimand from the stewards because he didn’t slow down enough for a yellow flag.
As for qualifying, Russell got pole with a 1:42.526, beating Charles by more than eight tenths. Only three drivers have managed a pole margin that big in the last ten years. Leclerc second with +0.837, and Piastri third literally right behind him with +0.838: only one thousandth apart. It’s Russell’s fifth pole position of the season, his first since Austria, and it’s the largest margin anyone has managed all year.
If you’re wondering what happened with Antonelli, his run was looking promising in Q1 until he hit the wall at Turn 1 and damaged his suspension, cutting his session short. He will start from sixteenth tomorrow, at a track with the highest safety car rate on the calendar. But if anyone can come back from there, it’s Kimi.
Hadjar earned an impressive fourth on his first weekend back. After missing three races with a broken wrist, he returned to the grid at Baku and out-qualified Verstappen, who was eighth after topping FP3.
Sainz had the best day and the worst day. He made it to Q3 for the first time all season, putting him ninth on the grid the day after his brakes caught fire in the pits. Then the stewards hit him with a five-place grid penalty for not slowing under yellow flags, dropping him to fourteenth. Which is just unfortunate, because I was hoping for another Carlos-Baku podium. He’d already been reprimanded for the same thing that morning, and the qualifying penalty came with two penalty points, putting him at four in the past twelve months.
The back of the grid is crowded: both Audis were out in Q1. Pérez picked up a three-place penalty of his own for impeding Piastri, and both Aston Martins were already starting from the back on engine penalties before qualifying began.
Russell has pole, potentially the fastest car, and his only real threat is starting sixteenth. Baku has never once made things easy, so it will be fun to watch.