BAKU CITY, Azerbaijan — George Russell clinched his fifth pole of the Formula 1 season during a competitive qualifying hour for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
“It’s been a while, so it definitely feels good,” he said. “It’s probably the biggest margin of my whole career, even including F2, F3 days, so the lap felt really sweet.
“The car’s been feeling great this weekend, and on a track like this, when you can hook it up like that, it feels really amazing.”
It looked like four teams would be in contention for the top spot, but Russell improved with every lap in to establish a dramatic advantage of eight tenths of a second over Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc, ending the session with a time of 1 minute and 42.526 seconds.
Oscar Piastri was just 0.001s off the Monegasque in third place, leading Red Bull’s Isack Hadjar and the second McLaren of Lando Norris, who suffered a lock-up on his final lap that prevented him from finding more time.
Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton settled for sixth, ahead of Pierre Gasly, Max Verstappen and Williams’ Carlos Sainz.
Point leader Kimi Antonelli crashed out during Q1 and will start 16th.
