Alpine Faces Challenges on Day One of Baku F1 Grand Prix with Fiery Incident.
As we got the first taste of the new sprint weekend format at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, we were promptly reminded the Baku City Circuit is no stranger to red flags.
Verstappen secured the topped FP1, with a time of 1:42.315, beating Ferrari's Leclerc by a narrow margin of 0.037 seconds, marking an end to a very busy session.
The two Friday sessions were interrupted by multiple red flags as Gasly suffered a loss of hydraulic pressure causing his Alpine to catch on fire during the first and sole practice session and DeVries Crashing in the beginning stages of Q1. Shortly after the session resumed, Pierre Gasly brushed against the concrete and brought out a second red flag of qualifying, making Friday a day to forget for his side of the Alpine garage.
The third try of Q1 went more smoothly with the two Haas cars of Kevin Magnussen and Nico Hülkenberg, Alfa Romeo’s Zhou Guanyu joining the bottom five.
After introducing an upgrade, it was a more positive qualifying for the McLaren outfit this time around as they got both of their cars into Q3, for the first time this season.
It's a Hat-Trick for Charles
After the first run during Q3 Charles Leclerc and the championship leader Max Verstappen have set the exact same time of 1:40.445, as both have driven a stellar lap. Unfortunately for Charles Leclerc, Verstappen was the first to do so, putting the Ferrari driver at P2.
However, Charles Leclerc has improved on his second hot lap, pulling off a third consecutive pole in Baku with Verstappen in on the front row in P2.
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