{"id":905626,"date":"2026-09-26T01:24:13","date_gmt":"2026-09-26T01:24:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/905626\/"},"modified":"2026-09-26T01:24:13","modified_gmt":"2026-09-26T01:24:13","slug":"f1-2026-azerbaijan-grand-prix-qualifying-george-russell-pole-kimi-antonelli-crash-video-results-highlights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/905626\/","title":{"rendered":"F1 2026 Azerbaijan Grand Prix qualifying; George Russell pole, Kimi Antonelli crash video; results, highlights"},"content":{"rendered":"

George Russell<\/a> will start on pole position for Saturday night\u2019s Azerbaijan Grand Prix<\/a> after braining the field on a day his Mercedes<\/a> teammate and runaway championship leader Kimi Antonelli<\/a> crashed out.<\/p>\n

Russell finished the session 0.837 quicker than Ferrari<\/a> ace Charles Leclerc<\/a>. It\u2019s the biggest qualifying margin since Max Verstappen<\/a> took pole by 1.244 seconds in a wet session at the 2023 Canadian Grand Prix<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

George Russell took a dominant pole position for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.\u00a0AP Photo\/Pavel Bednyakov<\/p>\n

Oscar Piastri<\/a> put in a strong performance to qualify third at the track where his world championship charge properly derailed 12 months ago.<\/p>\n

Piastri crashed in the final part of qualifying, and then the opening lap of the race. Antonelli\u2019s crash just minutes into the opening part of qualifying triggered suggestions from fans of the existence of a \u2018Baku curse\u2019.<\/p>\n

The Italian hit the inside wall at the apex of turn one and destroyed his suspension. He tried to drive the car back to the pits, but was told by race engineer Peter Bonnington to park the car.<\/p>\n

He watched the remainder of the session from the side of the track, watching his teammate obliterate the field. Russell was fastest in two of the three practice sessions and all three parts of qualifying.<\/p>\n

\u201cVery unnecessary mistake,\u201d Antonelli conceded after the session.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously, I misjudged with the grip being so different compared to the first lap.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a good way to come back to earth and to remind myself that I need to be on top of it every time, because otherwise I do these mistakes and a very stupid one.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Italian won his home race only three weeks ago from 19th on the grid<\/a>. The Mercedes is widely regarded as the best power unit on the grid, and the long straights into heavy braking zones of the Baku circuit will give Antonelli plenty of chances to fight back through the pack.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m looking forward to tomorrow. Hopefully, we can recover many places. The car is quick. We\u2019re ready to do our best. Hopefully, tomorrow is going to be a good race,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Piastri meanwhile showed a return to form at a track he admitted earlier this week he had a “love-hate” relationship with.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Antonelli watched the remainder of the session from trackside after crashing out of qualifying.\u00a0Fox Sports\/Nine<\/p>\n

The Aussie sat on top of the time sheets after the opening runs in the final part of qualifying, and looked a chance to take a shock pole before Russell’s stunning final lap.<\/p>\n

He ended up third, just 0.001 slower than Leclerc. On his return from a three-race layoff with a wrist injury, Isack Hadjar was fourth for Red Bull<\/a>, ahead of Norris in fifth. Verstappen was only 8th after his final flying lap was dudded by a yellow flag when Norris went up an escape road.<\/p>\n

A three-five represents a stunning turnaround for the McLaren<\/a> team which spent much of the opening two practice sessions with both cars in the garage with technical gremlins.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Oscar Piastri qualified third.\u00a0AP Photo\/Darko Bandic<\/p>\n

Mechanics were even spotted using cable ties to keep the cars together.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, it\u2019s been not an easy weekend from a few areas. We\u2019ve not been particularly quick,\u201d Piastri said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re also running cable ties on our car through (Thursday), which is never a great sign. So, it\u2019s been a little bit of a tricky one for us.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut it\u2019s not the first time this year that we get to qualifying, we take all the fuel out and the car just comes alive more.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

George Russell (middle) will start from pole ahead of Charles Leclerc (left) and Oscar Piastri (right).\u00a0AP Photo\/Darko Bandic<\/p>\n

\u201cClearly compared to George and Mercedes, we\u2019re still a long way off. But it\u2019s certainly not the first time where we get to qualifying and things look a bit brighter.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, happy with how we\u2019ve tried to evolve this weekend. It\u2019s certainly not been easy to get the most out of this car around here with how much you have to push and, obviously, the consequences.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, to end up P3 is a really good result.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s Piastri\u2019s equal-best qualifying result this season, having also started third in Japan<\/a> and Italy<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Azerbaijan Grand Prix gets underway at 9pm Saturday night. The race is being held on a Saturday to avoid a clash with the country’s national Remembrance Day on Sunday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"George Russell will start on pole position for Saturday night\u2019s Azerbaijan Grand Prix after braining the field on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":905627,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":["post-905626","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/905626","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=905626"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/905626\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/905627"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=905626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=905626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=905626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}