In other years, four different manufacturers in the first four grid slots would have been cause for note, now it\u2019s merely business-as-usual in an exceptionally competitive 2026 season. One thing that did raise eyebrows, however, is the margin of George Russell\u2019s eventual pole position.<\/p>\n
Mercedes<\/a> have looked rapid all weekend, but with championship leader Kimi Antonelli<\/a> clipping a wall in Q1, Russell\u2019s run to fifth pole of the season was serene \u2013\u00a0but his eight-tenths of a second margin to second-placed Charles Leclerc<\/a> was exceptional.<\/p>\n But what do we have in store on Saturday? Almost certainly a one-stop race, but myriad possibilities within that. All three tyre compounds are in contention, the pit windows are wide, and, while it\u2019s never particularly easy to pass in Baku, the combination of active aero and greater energy deployment options suggest we\u2019re going to see something a bit different\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In other years, four different manufacturers in the first four grid slots would have been cause for note,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":909956,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[441],"tags":[49,48,578,576,577,82],"class_list":["post-909955","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/909955","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=909955"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/909955\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/909956"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=909955"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=909955"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=909955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}