Leclerc on pole for the sprint race as Perez beats Verstappen in Baku

Charles Leclerc will start from pole position for Saturday's sprint race in Azerbaijan despite hitting the wall on the final lap. Unlike Sunday's race, Max Verstappen won't start alongside the man from Monaco as Sergio Perez beat his teammate. George Russell managed to beat his teammate, and Alex Albon was also able to breach the top seven.

Red Bull were confident with their SQ2 time and came into the garage early, allowing them to get to the front of the queue for the final eight-minute session in an attempt to beat Leclerc. However, a small mistake in the middle sector meant the Dutchman dropped behind Perez and Leclerc.

A very slow third lap was taken to cool the temperatures and keep some life in the soft tyres for one final chance to take pole. Verstappen went faster in the middle sector, but he wasn't quick enough to change the leaderboard.

For the first time in Formula 1 history, the sprint race will be its own isolated event, though it still provides a small number of points for the overall World Championship. The 100km dash takes place on Saturday afternoon and will use the result of the sprint shootout to determine the starting grid. Sunday's Azerbaijan Grand Prix will use the order of Friday's qualifying session rather than the result of the sprint race.

Sprint Shootout is a short version of the traditional qualifying format, with 12 minutes in SQ1 down to just eight in SQ3. Teams must use medium tyres in SQ1 and SQ2 and a brand-new set of soft tyres for SQ3. Yuki Tsunoda and Lando Norris had no new soft tyres left and wouldn't have been allowed to run should they have made it to the final session. This applied to Norris, who in SQ2 finished one place above his teammate and therefore knocked him out.

With the medium tyres in action, drivers could stay on track and keep circulating because the performance didn't degrade quickly. As the temperatures increased and fuel loads dropped, the times got quicker. Verstappen and Perez were the first duo to push ahead, but Leclerc regained his P1 position once his tyres were up to temperature. De Vries and Piastri put pressure on themselves by visiting the run-off area.

Alfa Romeo, AlphaTauri and Pierre Gasly sat in the bottom five with two minutes remaining. Those drivers in the drop zone didn't get the chance to pull it out of the bag because Logan Sargeant crashed to cause a red and chequered flag.

Red Bull were the first to record fast times but opted to pit with around five minutes remaining to save tyres. They were confident of any track evolution. With two minutes remaining, both Haas drivers, Piastri and Ocon sat in the drop zone. Sargeant was in there by default due to his crash.

Yellow flags for a Carlos Sainz lock-up threatened to curtail the session again, but it was cleared by the time most of the field hit the second sector. Ocon didn't have time to improve on his lap. Stroll briefly dropped in the knockout zone, but Alonso helped Stroll mitigate a DRS issue by giving him a tow down the 2.2km straight. It was enough to push Piastri back down to P11. Norris was unable to run in Q3 due to no remaining new soft tyres.