Leclerc takes Baku pole, Norris out in Q1

Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc took pole position for Formula 1's Azerbaijan Grand Prix, as McLaren's title hopeful Lando Norris suffered a shock Q1 elimination.

Norris is due to start the race 17th and 11 places behind championship rival Max Verstappen, who had a relatively disappointing qualifying of his own, placing behind Red Bull team-mate Sergio Perez for the first time this season after struggling to match the Mexican for much of the weekend.

Norris' disaster

Both Norris and McLaren team-mate Oscar Piastri needed to improve on their final attempts in Q1 to ensure progression into the next segment - but only Piastri managed to.

Norris was on course to do so as well, but rode the outside kerb hard coming out onto the main straight, losing time, and then had to lift massively for yellow flags caused by the crawling Esteban Ocon.

Ocon was a factor for many of his rivals' final Q1 laps, as his dreadful stop-start weekend continued after he'd barely run in two of the three practice sessions due to mechanical issues.

He slapped the wall on the outside of Turn 4 here, puncturing his rear left and having to tiptoe back to the pits in his damaged Alpine.

“When you have a 2km straight and you have to lift at the beginning of it… Nothing I could do,” replied Norris when asked by The Race if lifting for the yellow was the crucial blow to his lap.

“Of course I’m disappointed and frustrated but nothing I can change.”

Leclerc on pole after escaping penalty

Leclerc's quest for a fourth straight Azerbaijan Grand Prix pole was nearly over before it began, as he was investigated before the session for a potential yellow flag infringement.

The stewards looked into whether Leclerc was too fast coming into Turn 3 during third practice - with Pierre Gasly in the run-off and yellow flags waved - but ultimately ruled that at the moment he could see the flags and the car he was already braking and could not brake harder.

Leclerc did receive a reprimand for going too fast coming out of the corner - while still nominally under yellow flags - but escaped penalty due to "strong mitigation".

Despite his crash in Friday practice he looked the favourite for pole on form otherwise, and duly delivered.

Leclerc's first run in Q3 - though he wasn't to know it - was already fast enough for pole, and he found more time on his second run still with a 1m41.365s.

It put him three tenths clear of McLaren driver Piastri, who at the last moment denied Ferrari a 1-2 despite "probably the messiest map I've ever done in my life" - with Leclerc's team-mate Carlos Sainz settling for third.

Verstappen sixth, Colapinto beats Albon

Perez looked to have a bit more relative to team-mate Verstappen for much of qualifying, and had a tidier session compared to the reigning champion - who was lucky to get away with slapping the wall at Turn 15 in Q1, then caught a massive Turn 16 slide on his first push lap in Q3.

Verstappen will start two places behind Perez, having ended up sixth - slotting into the mammoth four-tenths gap between Mercedes duo George Russell and Lewis Hamilton.

Fernando Alonso was eighth in the lead Aston Martin, while Franco Colapinto did something predecessor Logan Sargeant hadn't managed at all - outpace Alex Albon in the Williams head-to-head match-up in grand prix qualifying.

Colapinto looked a genuine threat to Albon throughout, placing a sublime sixth in Q2, but did get help in defeating Albon in Q3 by the Thai driver coming out of the pits for his second run with the airbox fan still attached to his Williams.

Albon did get it successfully removed, but lost too much time to fit a final push in, so went from 0.03s up on Colapinto to three tenths down.

Bearman stuns Hulkenberg

Rookie Oliver Bearman - standing in for Haas's banned regular Kevin Magnussen - banged his hands on the steering wheel at the conclusion of his qualifying, yet ultimately came out of the session as one of its stars.

"Had a lock-up, damn it, mate, I'm such an idiot," he raged, missing out on Q3 by a tenth - yet even that compromised effort was enough to handily beat team-mate Nico Hulkenberg.

RB's Yuki Tsunoda and Alpine's Pierre Gasly slotted in between the two, while Lance Stroll - nine tenths down on Aston team-mate Alonso - rounded out the Q2 order.

Daniel Ricciardo was two tenths down on RB team-mate Tsunoda in Q1, which was enough to leave him on the outside looking in in 16th, followed by Norris and Valtteri Bottas, despite the latter enjoying a deliberate tow from Sauber team-mate Zhou Guanyu.

Zhou's participation in qualifying was a formality given Sauber had already triggered a back-of-the-grid penalty by swapping out his energy store and control electronics - but he did nominally qualify 19th, ahead of Ocon.