Azerbaijan GP: George Russell claims Baku pole from Charles Leclerc as Kimi Antonelli crashes in Q1

Russell had been in superb form throughout the three practice sessions and continued his mighty speed in Q3 to beat Ferrari's Charles Leclerc by eighth tenths of a second.

Antonelli clipped the inside wall into Turn 1 in Q1 and was told to stop the car in the middle sector, despite his efforts to carry on and get back to the pit lane.

"I turned in and had a lot more front end compared to the lap before and I touched the wall," explained Antonelli, whose perfect Q3 appearance record in 2026 came to an end.

"So mistake from my side. Very unnecessary. To be fair, I'm very mad about it and will try to do better tomorrow."

It means Russell has a big opportunity to make significant inroads into his 81-point deficit to Antonelli when the lights go out on Saturday at 12pm (build-up from 10.30am), live on Sky Sports F1 and Sky Sports Main Event .

"It's probably the biggest margin of my whole career, even including F2 and F3 days," said Russell, who has not won since June's Austrian Grand Prix.

"The lap felt really sweet. The car has been feeling great this weekend and on a track like this when you can hook it up like that it feels really amazing.

McLaren's Oscar Piastri qualified third, his best result since the Hungarian Grand Prix at the end of July, while Red Bull's Isack Hadjar was fourth on his return from a wrist injury, having missed the last three race weekends.

Max Verstappen looked to be a genuine pole threat to Russell but was caught out by yellow flags which Lando Norris caused after locking up into Turn 3 on the last Q3 runs.

Norris will still start fifth but Verstappen is only eighth, behind Ferrari's Lewis Hamilton in sixth and Alpine's Pierre Gasly in seventh.

Williams reached Q3 for the first time this season after Carlos Sainz qualified ninth, making the most of their major upgrade package which has cut all of their excess weight, while Alpine's Franco Colapinto was 10th.

Russell takes full advantage of Antonelli mistake

Russell had topped both of Thursday's practice sessions but the field closed up in final practice on Friday morning with Verstappen topping the session.

It felt like Mercedes were still favourites going into qualifying, but not by a big margin, and Q1 and Q2 underlined that as Russell topped both segments but was being pushed hard by Verstappen.

Due to the lack of high-speed corners, most teams apart from McLaren unusually ran the same set of tyres for the whole of Q3 to bring them into a better operating window.

Piastri took provisional pole after the first runs before Russell went quicker by half a second, then found even more pace on his last flying lap to set an unbeatable 1:42.526 which nobody came close to threatening.

Leclerc, a four-time Baku pole-sitter, qualified second but was still 0.837s behind while Piastri and Hadjar largely maximised what they had underneath them to get onto the second row.

Norris pushed too hard and went deep into the run-off area at Turn 3, which also compromised Verstappen's lap but Russell's remarkable speed would have been tough even for Antonelli to beat.

"It has been a while so definitely feels good. It's probably the biggest margin of my whole career, even including F2 and F3 days," said Russell.

"It was just the perfect lap at the end. I was in a good gap behind to Hadjar, which gave me a nice little slipstream probably by another tenth or two down this backstraight, so it was great."

Antonelli has made very few mistakes this season but on a weekend Mercedes clearly have the best car, he simply misjudged the amount of grip available and caught the inside wall which immediately damaged the track rod between his left front tyre and the car.

Just three weeks ago, Antonelli remarkably won from 19th at the Italian Grand Prix but Monza is the easiest track on the calendar to overtake at.

While you can overtake around Baku, the field spreads out more due to the successive slow-speed corners so Antonelli is unlikely to repeat his Italian heroics on Saturday.

Saturday September 26 7.55am: F2 Feature Race 2 10.30am: Grand Prix Sunday: Azerbaijan GP build-up* 12PM: THE AZERBAIJAN GRAND PRIX* 2pm: Chequered Flag: Azerbaijan GP reaction* 3pm: Ted's Notebook*

Racing on a Saturday! The 2026 Formula 1 season continues live on Sky Sports F1 as the Azerbaijan Grand Prix kicks off a triple-header of races, with the Baku race taking place on Saturday at 12pm (build-up from 10.30am). Stream Sky Sports with NOW - no contract, cancel anytime