Azerbaijan GP: Vettel beats Mercedes duo to pole

The Ferrari driver's first run in the Q3 top 10 shootout was good enough to secure pole position by 0.179s from Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton after a lock-up spoiled his second attempt.

But in the dying seconds of the session, it seemed the other Ferrari of Kimi Raikkonen was set for pole position having set the fastest times of all in the first two sectors.

He threw away that time by being too aggressive on the throttle out of the Turn 16 left-hander, which led to him losing enough time that he did not improve on his first run time.

This put Raikkonen down in sixth place, behind Mercedes driver Valtteri Bottas and the Red Bulls of Daniel Ricciardo and Max Verstappen.

Five of the top six will start on the supersoft Pirellis, having used them to set their times in Q2, the exception being Raikkonen who locked up on his flying lap and set his time on his second run using ultrasofts.

Ricciardo appeared to benefit from a tow from Raikkonen to pip his teammate by less than a tenth of a second.

Esteban Ocon performed strongly throughout qualifying to end up as best of the rest in seventh, a second off the pace, and just ahead of Force India teammate Sergio Perez.

Nico Hulkenberg was ninth fastest, although has to serve a five-place grid penalty for a gearbox change and will hand the position to Renault teammate Carlos Sainz.

Lance Stroll came close to knocking Ricciardo out in Q2 with his late lap, which was just 0.103s slower than the Red Bull driver's supersoft pace and good enough for 11th.

That put him three tenths clear of Williams teammate Sergey Sirotkin, who survived an investigation into impeding Sauber driver Marcus Ericsson in Q1 without any action being taken.

Fernando Alonso was 13th for McLaren, having been shuffled down from ninth place after the first runs despite improving on his second set of ultrasofts.

Sauber's Charles Leclerc was 14th, while Haas driver Kevin Magnussen was just under seven tenths down in 15th place after lapping over a second slower than he had in Q1.

Stoffel Vandoorne was the quickest driver to be eliminated in Q1 thanks to Stroll's late lap of 1m44.359s, which was 0.130s quicker than the McLaren driver.

That also relegated Pierre Gasly to 17th after the Frenchman's second run was ruined by an incident with Toro Rosso teammate Brendon Hartley.

Hartley was circulating slowly with a puncture at Turn 14 when Gasly happened upon him at the fast left-hand kink while on a lap that looked quick enough to get him into Q2.

Gasly just managed to swerve around the right side of Hartley and narrowly avoid contact, but he mounted the outside kerb and ended up in the Turn 15 escape road before returning to the pits – labelling what happened "unacceptable" over the radio.

"I was trying to get out of the way of Gasly but it was too late," said Hartley over the radio. "I feel pretty stupid about Gasly."

Hartley had to abandon his quick lap from the first run, and did not have time to have another run after his puncture so ended up down in 19th behind Ericsson having not set a serious lap time.

Haas driver Romain Grosjean was 20th having not set a time thanks to stopping with a gearbox problem early in Q1.

Cla	Driver	Chassis	Engine	Time	Gap
1	Sebastian Vettel	Ferrari	Ferrari	1'41.498
2	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	Mercedes	1'41.677	0.179
3	Valtteri Bottas	Mercedes	Mercedes	1'41.837	0.339
4	Daniel Ricciardo	Red Bull	TAG	1'41.911	0.413
5	Max Verstappen	Red Bull	TAG	1'41.994	0.496
6	Kimi Raikkonen	Ferrari	Ferrari	1'42.490	0.992
7	Esteban Ocon	Force India	Mercedes	1'42.523	1.025
8	Sergio Perez	Force India	Mercedes	1'42.547	1.049
9	Nico Hulkenberg	Renault	Renault	1'43.066	1.568
10	Carlos Sainz	Renault	Renault	1'43.351	1.853
11	Lance Stroll	Williams	Mercedes	1'43.585	2.087
12	Sergey Sirotkin	Williams	Mercedes	1'43.886	2.388
13	Fernando Alonso	McLaren	Renault	1'44.019	2.521
14	Charles Leclerc	Sauber	Ferrari	1'44.074	2.576
15	Kevin Magnussen	Haas	Ferrari	1'44.759	3.261
16	Stoffel Vandoorne	McLaren	Renault	1'44.489	2.991
17	Pierre Gasly	Toro Rosso	Honda	1'44.496	2.998
18	Marcus Ericsson	Sauber	Ferrari	1'45.541	4.043
19	Brendon Hartley	Toro Rosso	Honda	1'57.354	15.856
20	Romain Grosjean	Haas	Ferrari