Russell pulls from the “pole” in the Azerbaijan GP; World leader beat

George Russell snatched the pole position for the Azerbaijanese Formula One GP, a qualification held this Friday (25 September) in the streets of Baku. The championship leader, Andrea Kimi Antonelli, beat and was relegated to the 16th place on the starting grid.

During the three stages of qualification, Russell (Mercedes) was consistently the fastest and, in the end, turned out not to be a pole position at all surprising – since the competition showed no arguments for the British. It ended with a lap in 1m42.525 seconds (he was the only one down at 1m42 seconds), overcoming Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) for 0.837 seconds. George Russell had not achieved pole position since the Austrian GP in June.

Third place for Oscar Piastri (McLaren/Mercedes), which was only one thousandth of a second from Leclerc, with Isack Hadjar (Red Bull/Ford) snatching a fourth post to start at the Grand Prix in which he returns to action after having injured himself on a wrist. The Gaul failed the last three rounds and had not competed in almost two months.

Also Pierre Gasly (Alpine/Mercedes) impressed on being seventh, in front of the champion Max Verstappen (Red Bull/Ford) – eighth. Also surprising was Carlos Sainz, who took a Williams to the ninth position at the start.

Accident “tramed” championship leader

The big surprise it happened in the first phase of the qualification. Andrea Kimi Antonelli (Mercedes) hit a wall, suffered damage to the single place and was unable to continue. The leader of the championship will thus start from 16th in an urban circuit such as Baku – so one looks at a difficult recovery mission.

The Formula 1 Azerbaijan GP race is scheduled for this Saturday (September 26) at 12.00 noon (Portugal time, minus one in the Azores).