Vettel & Ferrari continue pole streak in Baku but Raikkonen slips to P6; Hamilton seizes front row spot in P2, Bottas primed to attack in P3
The good news for Ferrari and their lead driver Sebastian Vettel is that they both kept their pole streak alive at the mind blowingly difficult Baku street circuit in Azerbaijan in Saturday qualifying. Vettel showed once again that the Scuderia’s 2018 SF71H chassis has more than made up the speed defeicit to might Mercedes by taking his third consecutive pole and besting Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton & Valtteri Bottas in mano a mano combat. The bad news for Ferrari is that their Number 2, veteran Kimi Raikkonen, was once again maddeningly inconstant when it counted the most. On a flying lap in the dying moments of Q3 Raikkonen looked primed to pip Vettel for the top starting spot. Instead he pushed just that little bit too hard resulting in a wriggling tank slapper that the Finn quickly caught before smashing into the wall but that cost him valuable time. After that bobble Raikkonen ended up with only the 6th fastest time and therefore leaves his teammate potentially at the mercy of two hard charging Mercedes Silver Arrows on the opening lap.
Lewis Hamilton showed the fire that had been missing in the last couple of race weekends and tried very hard, coming up just short of Vettel in P2. His teammate Valtteri Bottas who has performed well so far and is a mere 5 points behind his more illustrious teammate in the Drivers’ Championship, put in a lap good enough for P3. That makes for intriguing starting positions for Mercedes and they are sure to harass Vettel with Raikkonen farther from the fight and perhaps try and get Lewis Hamilton his first win of the season here in its fourth round.
Red Bull might also find themselves in the mix even if they seem to lack the overall pace of the top two teams. Daniel Ricciardo, the winner of the last GP in China, parlayed that rediscovered confidence into a fine P4 start on the grid. His sometimes impulsive teammate drove within himself on this very challenging and at places super tight circuit to secure a P5 start. Behind Raikkonen, Force India’s Esteban Ocon did very well to come home with the seventh fastest time with his teammate and ofttimes archrival Sergio Perez just behind him in P8. The Renualts of Nico Hilkenber rounded out the top 10 qualifiers with Nico Hilkenberg in P9 and Carlos Sainz in P10 respectively. However, Hulkenberg will get dropped five spots with a gearbox penalty so Lance Stroll will be elevated to start tenth, a nice and much needed reward for struggling Williams.
Top 10 qualifiers for the Azerbaijan GP:
| POS | DRIVER | Q1 | Q2 | Q3 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1:42.762 | 1:43.015 | 1:41.498 | |
| 2 | 1:42.693 | 1:42.676 | 1:41.677 | |
| 3 | 1:43.355 | 1:42.679 | 1:41.837 | |
| 4 | 1:42.857 | 1:43.482 | 1:41.911 | |
| 5 | 1:42.642 | 1:42.901 | 1:41.994 | |
| 6 | 1:42.538 | 1:42.510 | 1:42.490 | |
| 7 | 1:43.021 | 1:42.967 | 1:42.523 | |
| 8 | 1:43.992 | 1:43.366 | 1:42.547 | |
| 9 | 1:43.746 | 1:43.232 | 1:43.066 | |
| 10 | 1:43.426 | 1:43.464 | 1:43.351 |
Complete qualifying results available via Formula1.com.
Tomorrow’s race airs live at 8AM Eastern on ESPN2 here in the States. On this highly challenging and exciting street course expect Safety Cars and chaos. Hope to see you then to see who can keep it out of the walls and come home to victory!