The Saturday in F1 Azerbaijan GP ended up being tricky for several drivers which saw new record of six red flags, as Max Verstappen was triumphant in the end.
It was chaos on Saturday in F1 Azerbaijan GP at Baku which saw a record breaking six red flags for Alexander Albon, Nico Hulkenberg, Franco Colapinto, Oliver Bearman, Charles Leclerc and Oliver Bearman. Only Hulkenberg managed to continue on from among the six.
These incidents didn’t deter Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, who took F1 pole in a hampered session. He put in a clean lap when he mattered to deny Williams’ Carlos Sainz a chance to finish on top after the Spaniard maintained the top spot for large part of the session.
The Dutchman is in a good place even though he is not 100% about his pace. Teammate Yuki Tsunoda was over a second off his time, but crucially in sixth to register his best finish with the F1 team. He was satisfied with the result, but he is more pleased with the race pace he has.
Their closest challengers ended up being Mercedes pair of Andrea Kimi Antonelli and George Russell, with the Italian in fourth and the Brit in fifth. They were satisfied with the result in changing conditions and trick situations. Neither the McLaren pair nor Ferrari F1 duo had a sound run in the end.
While Oscar Piastri and Charles Leclerc crashed out in Q3 one after the another, Lando Norris’ idea to run first after red flag didn’t work out to be just seventh, while Lewis Hamilton was 12th after wrong strategy of not using the medium tyres in the second part of F1 qualifying.
Verstappen: “I think it was just a very long qualifying in general with all the red flags, so you never got into a rhythm. Trying to complete laps was already difficult enough with what was going on. Getting the tyres in the window on your warm-up lap is very tough around here. Honestly, I was quite happy with how Q1 and Q2 went, but Q3 was a very long wait, and then choosing what tyres to use for the final run — there was a bit of rain around in places — so not easy at all. But in the end, very happy to sit here. It wouldn’t really matter too much because I think if anyone would have crashed, then there would have been no laps for the people that didn’t have a lap. So I just didn’t want to be first because you lose a bit to the line. So that meant that we were almost at the back, but that was OK. That was a call that we made. For the race, yeah, difficult to say at the moment. Of course, it’s a good starting position. We just have to try and do our own race, to be honest. Hopefully the car is kind on its tyres, that we can look after them, and just go from there.”
Norris: “No, because I still did everything I could. If I had won every race, I could have been world champion by now, but I didn’t, so no. They were tricky conditions, and I went out first, and it was just the wrong decision to make at the end. If everyone else got a yellow behind because someone went off behind me, you wouldn’t be asking me this question. Sometimes it goes your way around here, sometimes it doesn’t, and we thought we took the better option, and it would have been it if it wasn’t spitting with rain. It just started to spit again before the final run, and then going out first is just the incorrect thing, but something to learn from. No, I think opportunities are there every single weekend to get pole, I try every weekend to get there, today I struggled more because of making the best decision, but that’s the hindsight thing, not an incorrect one at the time. I wanted to go out first, yes. It was quite incredible, I wish everyone could understand how difficult it was with the wind, because half the crashes you saw were probably because of the wind, but not all. Some of them are braking too late, and trying to go for something which is not there, but Turn 4 where Colapinto went off and lot of other people, felt like one of the worst corners I’ve ever driven in my life. The tail wind was like 50kph, and it might be that the next lap, it is 10kph, so you are like: ‘Oh, I can go quicker’ and then you are in the wall, so it is very difficult. That’s why you want a car which is consistent and forgiving, and maybe we just struggled with that a little bit this weekend.
“Great for you guys. Hopefully a good watch [in terms of title battle]. I think we won’t have the pace to beat Max. I think he’s just going to be fast. He’s been quick all weekend. They can easily win in Monza. They can easily win again here today, this weekend. I’m not sure about the win, but we’ll be trying to get on the podium. There are good amount of cars ahead that probably little bit out of position…like the lap from Carlos was still pretty good, he’s up there and it is not an easy track to overtake on like Charles was a lot quicker last year and yet Oscar won, so not an easy to overtake, will have plenty of opportunities, hopefully can come out well. I mean, he’s right behind me. I’ve not done any high-fuel running. I’ve not done many laps this weekend in general. I’ve got a lot of questions I still need to answer. I’ve got a lot of work I’ve got to do tonight to look into Oscar’s long-run stuff, see how the car is handling, what the issues are going to be and many things. I think I’ve got a long night ahead of me. But the pace is always there or thereabouts, so it’s just eyes forward and I’ll try to overtake as many as I can.”
Piastri: “Yesterday was a bit of a struggle, quite definitely. I think today, I felt much happier with the car and the job I was doing. It was just a bit difficult to get it all together. That was the biggest thing, but the potential was there, whereas yesterday, it was arguable if it was. I was much happier today, just ultimately, I think I tried a bit too hard in Turn 3. I haven’t actually looked at what I did differently, because I didn’t feel like I did that much differently. A tiny bit can make a massive difference. Obviously disappointed with how I performed. There was a bit of rain around, yes, so I don’t know if that contributed. I don’t know if I got a gust of wind, I don’t know. At the moment, I’ve never been one to blame it on something other than myself. That’s what I’m going to stick with until I see something that tells me otherwise. I think so. Having it this windy is very tough. You add in the compounds, I think everyone expected the medium to be a good step better. In the end, I don’t really think it was. So yeah, a bit of an interesting dynamic from that side as well. But you add in wind, tyre uncertainty, a little bit of rain, cold conditions on a street track like this, and stuff is going to happen as you see.
“Potentially [yeah, it solace to see Lando only two places ahead], but more disappointed [with myself]… You could argue that it was a good opportunity to make progress. But what’s done is done, and I’ll try and claw back some points tomorrow. Potentially [yeah the red flags can help in the race], also not many people have done long run this weekend, so the strategy is kind of up in the air little bit, which gives us opportunity, we will have to wait and see.”
Antonelli: “That was a very difficult qualifying session for everyone out there! We had really windy conditions but also rain which made the white lines around the circuit in particular feel like ice. Judging how much to push and when was a real challenge and that wasn’t helped by all the red flag interruptions. You usually want to get into a rhythm for qualifying but that wasn’t possible today. For my last run, we opted to take the Medium tyre. I couldn’t quite get the required temperature into it as the track was still cold and slippery. I also lost a few tenths with a gust of wind into the final corner. Without those, I think we could have been on the front-row. That is a shame, but we still have a decent starting position for tomorrow. Hopefully we can look forward and be in the battle for the top three.”
Leclerc: “I’m obviously frustrated because it’s a track that I normally enjoy and where things flow quite naturally, but it’s been the complete opposite the whole weekend. I’ve been just struggling a lot to find the limits of the car and to find the feeling with the car. So, I knew going into qualifying that it was a bit of an uphill battle, and I changed quite a lot the car going into qualifying and I felt a lot better in Q1, and all the laps on the soft felt much better. Then we went on medium which we had kept because we thought it was the best tyre and today with these temperatures it was just impossible for me to switch them on. Difficult conditions or not I don’t think that this is the reason, I think we were just lacking a lot of pace on medium, I was probably seven or eight tenths off before the mistake and I was pushing like crazy. Something felt off there. We’ll look into it. But yes, it was difficult. I don’t think so [it was damp]. When you look at Carlos lap at that time, when you look at others right around me, there was some spits of rain, but I don’t think it was actually wetting the track. I don’t think that this is an excuse or whatsoever. I tried to judge the grip I would have even though it was very difficult to judge, because I had very little grip from the beginning of the lap with these tyres again. I misjudged it.
“Yeah, We can still have a great race from where we start. Our target will be to look forward to tomorrow and do a good job. We’ve normally had very good Saturdays and very bad Sundays here. I hope to turn the situation around this weekend. Should be better in the race run [the medium tyres], but I don’t think it is going to change completely. [The straightline speed] is not good as the others but there is not only that, I mean, tyre management is thing here as well. [In terms of tyre choice] I kind of had the same point of view as Lewis – I thought I had an advantage going into quali with the mediums, and then I put them on and I kind of regretted thinking I had an advantage because it was extremely tricky. We’ll look at what did change on track in order for it to be so difficult, but if you look at Q2, first run, with my medium I nearly didn’t make it through to Q2. I went long quite a few times. With the soft I didn’t have quite that feeling. Something felt off there – we’ll look into it. It was difficult.”
Hamilton: “The medium tyre was just much quicker. Basically, the team chose to run me on a medium in Q2 and Charles was meant to run it in the second run at Q2. They opted because everyone else wasn’t out on them. I opted to keep it and then all the top ten basically had three mediums. We knew that the mediums were quicker by let’s say three tenths or something like that. And we should have brought it in on the Q2, really. No. One of the things that kind of factored into it was a bit of a direction that the team was pushing for us to go, something with some of the setup. That didn’t feel as good as P2. But I felt like we made a lot of progress and we were looking really strong. I didn’t make any mistakes. It’s just then, because I was on and we were on the back foot with only two mediums, we were thinking of running, having two mediums in Q3. You’ve got to get to Q3 first, so ultimately just not the best execution. So, definitely disappointed with lots of positives to take. Honestly, I thought I was going to be fighting for the top three today. I thought I might be able to get pole today. That’s how much I hadn’t felt that early on. So it’s definitely tough to be in 12th, but as I said, I don’t think that’s… I don’t feel that’s down to my driving. It’s just execution needed to be better. That’s why I was like ‘can I come in’ but they told me to wait [ahead of the final lap].
“And we were to run out of fuel, so yeah. I mean it’s a great race this one. So I’m really hoping that my pace was decent on ending P2, race pace, we were quickest and so I’m really hoping tomorrow that we’ve got decent pace. We’ve got good straight line speed, we should hopefully be able to fight higher and so much can happen here with safety cars as well. So strategy can really come into play. So I’m just going to come into it as optimistically as possible and I’m still going to try and get into the top three, that’s been my goal all week. Yes, FP2 has been my best P2 in the whole year. So I was really feeling positive and I know exactly all the places that have gone wrong in the background. And so that’s the positive, so we know exactly where those are. And I know now what to do with the force to make sure that doesn’t happen. I implemented in those in the heat at the moment in qualifying is not so easy but at least some of them. There’s lots we can take internally to improve. I am sure, yeah. Definitely not [it won’t be easy], but where there is will, there is a way.”
The loss for other F1 drivers allowed Williams’ Sainz to secure his best qualifying result of 2025 in second, while Visa Cash App RB’s Liam Lawson was third. Both were pleased to secure the qualifying result, even though they are not certain about finishing in the same position.
The idea is to hang on but only time will tell. Teammates Alexander Albon and Isack Hadjar did not have the best of runs, with the Thai crashing out in Q1. He misjudged the grip level. The Frenchman made it to Q3, but did not have a clean final lap to get any better than eighth.
Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso was close to making it in Q2, but he felt 11th was maximum as Lance Stroll rued the wind situation. Sauber’s Nico Hulkenberg reflected on his barrier touch, while Gabriel Bortoleto was pleased to keep the car on track despite the braking troubles.
Haas’ Oliver Bearman rued his silly mistake that cost him a Top 10 place, while Esteban Ocon felt the pace wasn’t there. The Frenchman was eventually disqualified due to rear wing movement. The Alpine F1 pair saw a bad end after Pierre Gasly’s off at Turn 4 and barrier hit for Franco Colapinto.
Sainz: “Actually, the transition has been super smooth, and I’m very happy with everything that has been going on behind the scenes with Williams. First of all, the way I adapted to the car — I was quick straight away from the beginning of the year. Everything that we’re doing behind the scenes to work on next year’s car, which is our biggest project and our biggest motivation as a team. Unfortunately, this year has just been one of those years where nothing comes together when it comes to Sundays and results. But today just proves that my speed is there — that whenever I put good laps together and nothing happens to us, I’m quick. I have the speed. And, yeah, as long as that is there, I don’t worry. Just having a bit of bad luck or too many racing incidents recently and not being able to get all the points that we deserve as a team is tough. But if the speed is there and we’re working well on next year’s car, it doesn’t worry me. No, not really, because I knew my lap was good, but probably not good enough for pole. I mean, we know that if a McLaren or a Red Bull puts a lap together, that’s three to five tenths on average. And also if the track conditions were good enough — which was the big unknown — I knew my lap was not going to be good enough. I think our simulation said at the time maybe only Max and Lando could beat us. So I was thinking about a P3. In the end, it was only Max… It had to be Max! But, in general, I thought as soon as I started my lap at the end, I was actually coming very quick.
“I was like three or four tenths up on my lap. And in one way, I was thinking, great, because this might even confirm or achieve pole, but then I was thinking the leaders are going to be even quicker, no? And that’s exactly what happened. It hasn’t been the smoothest weekend for me. I’ve been struggling with the feeling on the brakes. With this car, we are having some brake issues in some demanding tracks like Canada and here. But today in quali, I felt good. And most importantly, we kept the car consistent through the weekend, and I think that allowed me to… Whenever there was a chance to put a lap together — which there were not many, I think I did in total three or four laps today in quali given the red flags — the lap was good. So, tomorrow from P2, we’ll try and keep it consistent, see the pace of the car versus every one of the leaders that will try and come through. But if you look at our long runs yesterday, we were actually pretty quick. So I’m hopeful that we can go for it tomorrow.”
Lawson: “Yeah, it’s pretty cool. It was a good session. It’s been a good weekend so far. It’s been very tricky, though. I think that quali was one of the toughest ones we’ve probably experienced — trying to keep putting out laps, especially when the rain’s coming down. And the amount of red flags that there were as well — it was definitely a challenge. But the car’s been good, honestly, all weekend. We’ve just been fine-tuning, and I think it was in the right place. But when a session’s like that, honestly, it’s more down to just putting a lap together and making sure that you have good track position and don’t get caught out by these red flags. I think we fuelled for the session, did the whole session, and just kept driving around! We made a mistake in Monza and took a bit of a risk, but we knew the car was fast. But just with how close it is this year you can still be fast and have something happen and get knocked out.
“So today, with everything that was going on and the conditions, we played it a bit safer and we maximised laps on track. We probably completed three or four laps but spent the entire qualifying — when it was green — pretty much on the track. So obviously for today, it worked for us. It’s really hard to know. Obviously, we’d love to stay where we are, but we’re aware of the guys that we’re racing as well, and we know that there’s some quicker guys behind us. So we’ll try and obviously have a good start — that’s the first thing. I think our long-run pace was okay, but honestly, when the conditions are as windy as they were today, it changes everything. So, yeah, let’s see tomorrow.”
Bearman: “Yeah, it was shame because the car was fast, so sorry to the team. Not really [any positives to take], we have been fast all weekend and I did a silly mistake in qualifying, so. It was windy out there and I got caught out there. It was crazy, it changed lap to lap, so caught out there. Yeah, it is just a shame.”
Albon: “Yeah, basically, it’s my fault, no excuses really, just a bit amateurish. I think I was first out on track, so when I went into Turn 1 on the first lap, it was really green. And then I came around the second time, and the grip difference was huge, and I was expecting the front to slide a little bit. It normally slides a bit, and you kind of slide past the wall. You kind of almost time it that you get a bit of understeer as you get close to the wall. But it didn’t understeer, so it’s clumsy and frustrating. I mean, we had a quick car. I think I’ve been top eight pretty much every session, and I’ve been feeling good with the car all weekend, so it’s annoying to get me out of what should be a Q3 car.
“We have done a good job [with the tyre prep], we have taken a step, we were able to hit our laps in first push in free practice which is the first time that we done in a long time, I think it was partly why our pace was good in free practice. We were looking good in the race as well in terms of race pace, yeah annoying. Yeah, this is a hard track to overtake, much harder than I expected. So, let’s see, because the FP2 long runs, we were quick, but as soon as I got behind another car, the overheating you get in sector 2, really with the tyres sliding around a bit more, you really struggle to get close enough in sector 3 and get the overtake. But if there’s an 80 km/h headwind to Turn 1, then I think you should be able to overtake. So, let’s see. Truthfully, I think it [strategy] will be similar, we are down a hard tyre pretty much compared to whole field, I think it is going to be a managed one-stop race for majority of the part. We will try and create opportunity and hoping more weather than anything.”
Colapinto: “It was quiet tricky, it was was lot of wind there, lot of gust, I went in the corner and I lost the rear, not really know the reason for it. I guess it was a lot of tailwind and I lost the rear there, something similar to what happened to Pierre in front, like he went in the escape road, I couldn’t really go there to avoid a crash, just tricky there with rain as well, quite unpredictable. We need to focus on the race, there were some improvements, there was some things that we were getting better through the weekend. We were generally more consistent with the lap times and we found some better compromise for low speed, of course we now need to focus on the race. The car felt much better today and we made some good steps forward from yesterday. The first run on Softs in Qualifying was already looking more positive and we were in the mix to get through.
“I was up on my delta at the start of the final lap in Q1, but as I said a big gust of wind into Turn 4 meant I lost the rear completely and made contact with the wall on the outside. Wind tends to play a major factor here, but it seemed more so today with gusts catching a lot of people out with multiple incidents and stoppages throughout Qualifying. It’s a pity that we didn’t get to complete the lap, as I felt with how the car was feeling, we had a good chance of getting through to Q2. Also sorry to the team for the extra work. Let’s see what’s possible tomorrow as this race tends to throw up a lot of surprises.”
Alonso: “It went a little better than we expected today in Qualifying and I think to be on the edge of Q3 is a good result for us. There were a lot of red and yellow flags, so we weren’t able to get too many laps on the board. We opted to run mostly with the Medium tyres and I think it worked quite well, but it’s tricky to say which compound is better. The windy conditions made it difficult out there and it made every lap very inconsistent. It’s meant to be windy tomorrow as well, so we’ll see what happens.”
Hulkenberg: “It was a disappointing session, no doubt. For the first time all weekend, I struggled quite a lot with front locking, and that made it tough to put a clean lap together. Up until qualifying, things had been going well, so it’s frustrating to miss the mark when it mattered most. Of course then with incident like these your plan gets all over the board, the timing gets all out, it is what it is then with red flag, you need to make the most of it but, yeah, didn’t produce clean laps, just didn’t deliver what I should. It’s obviously going to be a challenge starting from where we are, but crazy things can happen at this track and we’re here to fight. The car has felt decent all weekend overall, and if things open up in the race, we’ll try to take full advantage. We’ll reset tonight and give it everything tomorrow.”
Here’s detail on Esteban Ocon’s penalty: https://www.fia.com/system/files/decision-document/2025_azerbaijan_grand_prix_-_infringement_-_car_31_-_failure_of_rear_wing_main_plane_tip_deflection_test.pdf
Here’s the crashes: https://www.formula1.com/en/video/every-red-flag-from-baku-qualifying.1843800426608583034
Here’s how F1 Azerbaijan GP qualifying panned out