Leclerc’s chaotic pole in Baku: five accidents, including Sainz, and Alonso’s cracking: “Some are overexcited”

Charles Leclerc will start from the first position of the Azerbaijan GP after achieving his second consecutive pole (ninth on his own account) in an absolutely chaotic.

Four red flags marked the future of a batch that ended up deciding on the management of the slips, especially because of how badly they planned it at Mercedes: Valtteri Bottas sacrificed his return for nothing, since Lewis hamilton (whose performance in Baku is not being as good as they hoped) failed to improve on Leclerc’s initial attempt.

In fact, he was the pilot of Ferrari the great beneficiary, since he came behind both and in the long Azeri straight he managed the time in that chaotic Q3.

A Q3 that ended early by the fourth serious accident of the day that caused the fourth red flag. In Q1 there were two (Lance Stroll Y Antonio Giovinazzi), another in Q2 (Daniel Ricciardo) and the last one in the final batch (Yuki tsunoda).

All of them were in the fearsome curve 15, which had already claimed a victim before. Own Max verstappenIn free practice in the morning, he ended up against that wall.

The icing on it was Carlos Sainz, fifth accident of the day. The Madrilenian was right behind Tsunoda, but did not hit that wall, but went to the escape. This incident left a bad feeling for the Spaniard, who will start 5th in search of a new podium.

Given how difficult this circuit is, it is far from an unthinkable goal.

All of these incidents generated a some discomfort in Fernando Alonso, who failed to do a fast lap (like the others) in Q3. The Asturian finally surpassed Esteban Ocon with solvency (the Frenchman did not pass Q2 and will start 12th) after feeling much more comfortable throughout the weekend.

Green shoots for Fernando Alonso in free practice at the Azerbaijan GP, ​​with Carlos Sainz on the podium

After doing his first lap in Q3 on used tires, he wanted to have put new ones for the second and to be able to take advantage of the extreme equality seen here to get at least a couple of positions. Tsunoda’s accident prevented him.

In Alonso’s opinion, this is because the rest of the drivers are a bit overexcited. “You can overtake here, on the straight you can. If people keep driving 120% above their possibilities, there will be a lot of safety cars; if people calm down a bit, we will have a normal race. Tomorrow they are calmer, today some are overexcited, “he wished before the race.

This is Alonso’s best ranking in Baku, since it came 14th in 2016, 16th in 2017 and 12th in 2018.