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Ferrari's impressive Formula 1 form - and pace in Baku - continued on Saturday afternoon as Charles Leclerc stormed to his fourth consecutive Azerbaijan Grand Prix pole position.
Fresh from victory in the Italian Grand Prix a fortnight earlier, Leclerc beat Oscar Piastri by 0.321 seconds in Q3 to secure his third pole position of 2024 and will head the McLaren driver on the front row of the grid for Sunday's race.
The second row will be shared by Leclerc's Ferrari team-mate Carlos Sainz and two-time Azerbaijan GP winner Sergio Perez - who ended a streak of 33 race weekends where he'd been outqualified by Red Bull team-mate Max Verstappen.
F1 drivers' championship leader Verstappen will line up sixth, behind George Russell (who was reprimanded but not penalised over a potential yellow flag infringement).
Lewis Hamilton will now start the 2024 Azerbaijan GP from the pitlane with a new Mercedes engine. Hamilton struggled for pace in qualifying and booked seventh spot on the grid before his team decided to change the engine.
Furthermore, Mercedes made suspension changes to the car outside of parc ferme.
Hamilton's penalty means Fernando Alonso now starts seventh and shares the fourth row with Williams's Franco Colapinto, who starts eighth in his second weekend at the wheel of the FW46 - and at a track he hasn't previously raced on.
Colapinto's team-mate Alex Albon starts ninth after a cooling fan was left in his car's airbox as he left the pits for his second Q3 attempt. Albon was able to remove this by reaching over his head in the pitlane exit but did not make it to the start/finish line in time to set a second lap.
But he escaped penalty for throwing the cooling fan over the side of his car as, although "throwing parts overboard, requiring a marshal to retrieve them is not normal", the stewards ruled that as doing so avoided the need for a yellow flag Albon's action turned out to be the "least worst option".
The stewards opted to fine Williams €5000.
Oliver Bearman starts 10th - one better than he did in his F1 debut for Ferrari at Jeddah - as he makes his first start for Haas in place of the suspended Kevin Magnussen.
Pierre Gasly described his run to 13th in Q2 as "amazing" in an Alpine that he thought would qualify no higher than 13th, but his joy was short-lived as his car was disqualified from qualifying for exceeding the fuel mass flow limit on the final lap of Q2.
This was due to a technical fault that Alpine said provided "no performance advantage" - but the stewards ruled this was irrelevant as per F1 regulations.
That promotes Lando Norris another place on the grid, though McLaren's title hopeful still has a task on his hands starting from 15th after he was eliminated in the first part of qualifying.
Norris was on course to improve on his final lap in Q1 but had to slow for yellow flags, shown as Esteban Ocon was limping back to the pits, in the final sector.
Ocon will also start from the pitlane having taken new power unit elements in his Alpine after issues throughout the weekend.
Although Sauber's Zhou Guanyu was given a back-of-grid start for taking a third energy store and control electronics, he will actually start ahead of Gasly, Hamilton, and Ocon.
Azerbaijan Grand Prix 2024 starting grid
- Charles Leclerc (Ferrari)
- Oscar Piastri (McLaren)
- Carlos Sainz (Ferrari)
- Sergio Perez (Red Bull)
- George Russell (Mercedes)
- Max Verstappen (Red Bull)
- Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin)
- Franco Colapinto (Williams)
- Alex Albon (Williams)
- Ollie Bearman (Haas)
- Yuki Tsunoda (RB)
- Nico Hulkenberg (Haas)
- Lance Stroll (Aston Martin)
- Daniel Ricciardo (RB)
- Lando Norris (McLaren)
- Valtteri Bottas (Sauber)
- Zhou Guanyu (Sauber)*
- Pierre Gasly (Alpine)**
Pitlane: Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes)***
Pitlane: Esteban Ocon (Alpine)****
*Zhou handed a back-of-the-grid start for power unit element changes
**Gasly excluded from qualifying for exceeding fuel mass flow limit
***Hamilton starts from pitlane for power unit and suspension changes
****Ocon starts from pitlane for power unit changes
