Close Qualifying for the Team at the Azerbaijan GP

14 September 2024

Min Read

George and Lewis start from 5th and 7th positions respectively in Baku.

After an eventful Friday, Formula 1 took to the streets of Baku for a thrilling qualifying session for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.

George and Lewis had a tough session, struggling with traffic and tyre warm-up. In the end they finished fifth and seventh and will start Sunday's race from the third and fourth rows of the grid respectively. Charles Leclerc will start from pole position, with Oscar Piastri alongside him on the front row of the grid.

At the first attempt in Q3, George and Lewis secured 4th and 7th place respectively. George was three tenths off Charles Leclerc's fastest time, while Lewis struggled to get the tyres up to the necessary temperature.

Both were able to improve their lap times in the second run on fresh Soft tyres, but did not make up any positions. George was pushed back to P5 by Sergio Perez who improved on his final qualifying lap. Just 0.069 seconds separated George from P3.

Before the start of Q1, our duo lined up in the pit lane queue to start our programme straight away. Both started the first session with two laps on the Medium tyres, followed by a run on the Soft tyres. George finished Q1 in P9, Lewis improved to P5 on his second push lap.

This put Lewis and George safely through to Q2, which they started with a run on used Soft tyres, followed by a push lap on a fresh set of Soft tyres. On the latter, George and Lewis qualified for Q3 in P4 and P9 respectively.

Quiz: Test Your Knowledge of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix

Hard Work in Disrupted FP3

Saturday morning's FP3 was a mirror image of Friday morning's FP1. The last practice session before qualifying was also interrupted by several red flags. Firstly, Esteban Ocon in the Alpine stopped on track with a technical problem, then Oliver Bearman in the Haas crashed in Turn 1.

In addition, there were a few very light drops of rain and slightly lower temperatures than on Friday. So the team took their time before sending our duo out for the first time.

Both Lewis and George had two sets of Soft tyres at their disposal, but had to abandon their first attempts due to yellow and red flags respectively. Lewis also had to abandon his second push lap on the new set of tyres and had to settle for P10. George, on the other hand, improved to take P1, 0.013s ahead of Charles Leclerc.

The team now has time overnight to prepare for the race and work on strategy. The race will start at the Baku City Circuit on Sunday at 15:00 local time (12:00 BST).

In Pictures: The Best Images From Baku

George Russell

I was pretty happy with my laps in Qualifying. They all felt strong but unfortunately, we didn’t quite have the pace to fight for pole position. We topped the times in FP3, but we knew that this flattered us a little bit, having run right at the very end of the session. We thought we would be in a battle just outside of the top three. It is therefore a little frustrating to be half-a-tenth from P3 but P5 isn’t a bad place to start from.

Ferrari are typically quick at street circuits and that proved to be the case once again today. I don’t think we will be able to race them for victory tomorrow but hopefully we are in the battle for the podium.

Lewis Hamilton

Qualifying was disappointing as we had a good day yesterday and I thought we could be in the fight for the front two rows. Unfortunately, I was struggling to get the tyres working and that is what it is all about. We will analyse why that was as a team and hopefully make improvements moving forward.

The aim is to move forward tomorrow, and I am staying positive that we can do so. It is not always easy to progress here, but we have a slightly different tyre strategy to others which may help us. We will also have to look after the tyres as it is easy to suffer with the rears. If we can do so, then hopefully we can have a better day than we had today.

Toto Wolff, Team Principal & CEO

Qualifying proved frustrating today. Ferrari have looked strong all weekend, so we knew that it was unlikely we would be fighting for pole position. We worked hard to make improvements overnight and, although we were flattered by FP3, looked to be able to battle for the second row. After our first runs in Q3 that seemed possible. Unfortunately, on our second efforts we had a slightly compromised out lap and missed out on P3 by just half-a-tenth of a second.

George was happier throughout the session and ended up P5. Lewis struggled with tyre temperature and finished P7. It leaves us with work to do tomorrow but it is a long race, and our aim is to move forward. We haven’t got a clear idea of where we are compared to our competitors on the long run so we will see what we can do tomorrow.

Andrew Shovlin, Trackside Engineering Director

We made some overnight changes with the aim of getting the car into a better place, not only for qualifying today but tomorrow’s race too. The outcome this weekend will ultimately be dictated by long run pace, so it was important that we continued to work on protecting the rear tyres for Sunday.

After a disrupted Friday, George was happier with the overall balance in FP3, but Lewis felt less comfortable than he did the day before. Whilst George topped the times in that session, we knew we were unlikely to be challenging for pole position. After making it through the first two segments of qualifying, we looked like we may challenge for the second row. Unfortunately, the out laps on our second run were slower than we would have liked and that cost us some crucial tyre temperature on those final efforts. That may have cost George a couple of places and we found ourselves in the middle of a tight bunch, rather than at the front.

Without much long run data from Friday, everyone’s relative pace is slightly unknown. We hope the changes we’ve made to the car since then will help us tomorrow and we can fight for the podium.

2024 Azerbaijan GP Qualifying Result

1	Charles Leclerc	Ferrari	1:41.365
2	Oscar Piastri	McLaren	1:41.686	+0.321
3	Carlos Sainz	Ferrari	1:41.805	+0.440
4	Sergio Pérez	Red Bull	1:41.813	+0.448
5	George Russell	Mercedes-AMG	1:41.874	+0.509
6	Max Verstappen	Red Bull	1:42.023	+0.658
7	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes-AMG	1:42.289	+0.924
8	Fernando Alonso	Aston Martin	1:42.369	+1.004
9	Franco Colapinto	Williams	1:42.530	+1.165
10	Alexander Albon	Williams	1:42.859	+1.494
11	Oliver Bearman	Haas	1:42.968	+1.603
12	Yuki Tsunoda	Racing Bulls	1:43.035	+1.670
13	Pierre Gasly	Alpine	1:43.179	+1.814
14	Nico Hülkenberg	Haas	1:43.191	+1.826
15	Lance Stroll	Aston Martin	1:43.404	+2.039
16	Daniel Ricciardo	Racing Bulls	1:43.547	+2.182
17	Lando Norris	McLaren	1:43.609	+2.244
18	Valtteri Bottas	Sauber	1:43.618	+2.253
19	Esteban Ocon	Alpine	1:44.504	+3.139
20	Zhou Guanyu*	Sauber	1:44.246	+2.881

*Required to start from the back of the grid (use of additional power unit elements)

2024 Azerbaijan GP FP3 Result

1	George Russell	Mercedes-AMG	1:42.514	15
2	Charles Leclerc	Ferrari	1:42.527	17
3	Lando Norris	McLaren	1:42.737	15
4	Oscar Piastri	McLaren	1:42.749	14
5	Max Verstappen	Red Bull	1:42.862	16
6	Carlos Sainz	Ferrari	1:42.968	17
7	Sergio Pérez	Red Bull	1:43.024	16
8	Alexander Albon	Williams	1:43.194	14
9	Franco Colapinto	Williams	1:43.238	15
10	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes-AMG	1:43.301	13
11	Fernando Alonso	Aston Martin	1:43.474	15
12	Yuki Tsunoda	Racing Bulls	1:43.503	17
13	Lance Stroll	Aston Martin	1:43.571	19
14	Daniel Ricciardo	Racing Bulls	1:43.870	18
15	Pierre Gasly	Alpine	1:43.876	15
16	Nico Hülkenberg	Haas	1:44.164	13
17	Valtteri Bottas	Sauber	1:44.187	18
18	Zhou Guanyu	Sauber	1:44.869	20
19	Esteban Ocon	Alpine	-	1
20	Oliver Bearman	Haas	-	2

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