“You can start dancing to see if it rains a bit harder, no?”
Carlos Sainz sat within his car, confined to the garage, as he watched the sprinkling of rain sweep almost horizontally across the Baku City Circuit. The gusting winds carried the tiny drops with some force but, although it had a slight film of dampness across the circuit, Sainz hoped for a deal with the rain gods to parlay for a greater downpour.
After Charles Leclerc triggered the opening red flag of Q3, the fifth across a wild Azerbaijan Grand Prix qualifying session, Sainz was on provisional pole ahead of the two Racing Bulls cars – he, Hadjar, and Lawson were the only drivers who had logged a lap by the time Leclerc biffed his car into the wall at Turn 15.
When the session reopened for business, Sainz was ultimately led on for a bit longer. Oscar Piastri dumped his McLaren into Baku’s ravenous barriers, which quelled efforts from Lando Norris and Max Verstappen as they looked set to challenge Sainz’s 1m41.5s. They’d only have time for one more lap, once the debris from Piastri’s car was decanted into the marshal’s bucket and moved aside.
Verstappen, somewhat inevitably, poured cold water on Sainz’s little fire. Regardless, second place was a good effort – Sainz could not better his opening lap in Q3, while Verstappen went hell-for-leather on a set of softs and put his former team-mate to the sword.
The lion’s share of the time was found in the opening sector – in particular, Turns 3 and 4. The opening 90-degree turns could be described as much-of-a-muchness, although the 0.1s gap between them through the opening turns is a significant margin in the year 2025.
Verstappen was carrying a lot more speed into the opening corner and thus had to get off the power sooner, but was still brave enough to keep a little more speed through the corner and had the stability to hit the gas early. Sainz’s 0.12s margin was retained through Turn 2, as the Williams driver kept going for a little bit longer on the throttle before assuming the position for the corner.
Verstappen’s greater straightline speed on the run to Turn 3 bought another 0.08s over Sainz’s lap, offering a 0.2s advantage into the next 90-left, but again the Red Bull could retain more speed while braking later for the corner to almost double that delta.
Sainz had been better on the exit of Turn 3 and short acceleration zone into Turn 4, but Verstappen minimised the time spent braking and got on the throttle sooner out of the next turn. By now, Verstappen was 0.5s up.
But Sainz had been strong through the middle sector, and Verstappen was just over a tenth slower through Turns 5-6-7, the prelude to ‘the castle section’.
Here, Verstappen was absolutely committed and regained the time loss plus change to sit almost 0.6s clear at the point where he could finally exhale. Neither driver hit full throttle until reaching the Turn 12 exit, but Verstappen had simply taken more speed through the narrow Old Town section.
Sainz was a bit quicker out of Turn 12, and the two were about as quick as each other on the run to Turn 15. Verstappen appeared to take a bit of margin here, presumably to get the lap on the board while the surface was a little more slippery, while Sainz had the licence to be more aggressive with his entry speed on his earlier lap.
He did so through Turn 16 as well, as Verstappen perhaps found the balance a bit more tricky at that stage during qualifying. The changing goalposts with regards to wind did make Turn 16 difficult at the end of Q3, while Sainz likely navigated the final proper corner at a more fortunate time.
You can see that in Verstappen’s throttle trace, where a small blip to stabilise the car marginally hindered the acceleration as the steering hinted at stepping out of line. Sainz’s time was now just 0.3s down.
Although the Williams is no slouch in a straight line, a trimmed-out Red Bull works wonders here. Simply under acceleration, Verstappen’s advantage opened up by another 0.15s – even without a tow down the 2.2km runway to Turn 1.
When Sainz logged his time, the mediums appeared to hold up more strongly; Pirelli chief Mario Isola stated that many of the drivers preferred the more consistent grip of the C5 versus the “peaky” C6 – even if the nominated soft offered more outright grip.
But when the circuit was slightly greasier, the soft seemed to offer the greater returns. Verstappen pressed the C6s into service even if he didn’t particularly like them – speaking to Dutch media, he suggested that Pirelli should leave the C6 at home.
“For some drivers it was easier to use the medium,” Isola explained after qualifying. “The comment was that they feel more confidence in the medium rather than the soft. Probably the soft is a little bit more peaky. Today in quali, it was slightly different because the soft with this temperature was better in terms of warm-up.
“For the medium, sometimes it was difficult to have a proper warm-up or the tyre ready immediately when they were pushing. And also obviously the wind was not helping at all because we know how sensitive these cars to the wind are. And with tailwind it was probably difficult to find the right braking point.”
Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing, Carlos Sainz, Williams
Photo by: Mark Sutton / Formula 1 via Getty Images
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