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Azerbaijan GP
F1 Azerbaijan GP Live Commentary and Updates - FP3 & Qualifying
Saturday's action, including qualifying, ahead of the Formula 1 Azerbaijan Grand Prix in Baku.
F1 returns to the unique Baku Street Circuit for the eighth round of the 2022 championship, the second street event in a row following the Monaco GP.
Sergio Perez was the winner last time out, and now sits only 15 points behind championship leader and team-mate Max Verstappen - as Charles Leclerc remains between them in second in the drivers' standings.
Verstappen will be looking for retribution after his spectacular tyre blowout at last year's Baku race, which cost him victory in Azerbaijan's capital city.
Charles Leclerc topped Friday’s second practice for Ferrari ahead of Perez and Verstappen.
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Stopwatch
Leclerc increases his advantage at the top of the times with a 1m43.240s, but loses time in the final sector without the use of a slipstream.
Yellow flag
Bottas runs on at Turn 3, which brings out the yellow flags with Verstappen lining up a fast lap, and gets stuck in a tight spot in the run-off trying to turn around his Alfa Romeo.
The Finn gets his car facing the right way to get going again which duly gets rid of the yellow flag that robbed the drivers of the chance to improve their lap times.
Stopwatch
Verstappen improves with a 1m43.240s, 0.279s off Leclerc, but Perez goes top with a 1m43.170s. The Mexican is really gelling with the Red Bull now.
Quote
"Did you turn the engine down?" Hamilton asks over team radio. His Mercedes right-hand man Pete Bonnington confirms they have to protect engine mileage.
Yellow flag
Leclerc misjudges his braking at Turn 15 and runs off track, but avoids any further drama to turn his Ferrari around and get going again.
Alonso, with the aid of a huge slipstream from Perez, sets the fastest final sector time despite only going 11th fastest overall. But that shuffles Hamilton back to 12th place on the times.
Bottas goes off track again, this time at Turn 2, but avoids any serious problems.
Checkered flag
Verstappen has to bail out of a flying lap after getting baulked by Alonso, which means his session is over as the chequered flag comes out.
Perez is also on a late flying lap but just misses out on improving his own outright quickest time by a tenth of a second. The Mexican still tops the session from Leclerc and Verstappen.
Both McLarens made a late dart up the timesheet too, with Norris taking fifth and Ricciardo taking sixth, which will given the Woking-based team a timely confidence boost going into qualifying.
Practice start time on the grid which rounds out the FP3 action. That session sets up qualifying with plenty of intrigue in the Ferrari vs Red Bull fight at the front.
Breaking news
Here's the full report on final practice:
https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/f1-azerbaijan-gp-perez-pips-leclerc-in-delayed-fp3/10320281/
https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/f1-azerbaijan-gp-perez-pips-leclerc-in-delayed-fp3/10320281/
Checkered flag
With that, we'll take a breather ahead of F1 qualifying later. This is also a good opportunity to flag Autosport will be running a live text commentary on the Le Mans 24 Hours which gets underway later. The race starts at 3pm BST.
Welcome back to live updates from the Formula 1 Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
We are gearing up for qualifying in the evening sun in Baku.
The qualifying session has been delayed and is not due to start for another 15 minutes. The delay has been caused by lengthy barrier repairs at Turn 1 following a multi car crash in the earlier F2 sprint race. This pushed the start of FP3 back and as a consequence qualifying has been delayed as teams are required to have a two hour gap between FP3 and qualifying.
Drivers are getting ready to jump into the cockpit of their cars.
It looks like we are set for another Red Bull versus Ferrari battle for pole. Red Bull had the edge in FP3 with Sergio Perez pipping Ferrari's Charles Leclerc by 0.070s.
Ferrari has however had the measure of Red Bull largely in the qualifying stakes this year, with five poles from seven races to date. Leclerc has all five of those, while the other two have been shared by Red Bull's of Max Verstappen (Imola) and Sergio Perez (Jeddah).
Drivers are climbing into their cars now so we are not far away from the green flag here.
The battle for the best-of-the-rest behind Red Bull and Ferrari could be an interesting one with Mercedes, AlphaTauri, McLaren, Aston Martin and Alpine split by 0.3s in FP3.
Green flag
Qualifying is go!
Expect plenty of comments from drivers about traffic as the majority of the field rolls out of the pits.
Everyone is out on track now.
Hamilton reports that his bake pedal is feeling a "bit soft" on the radio.
Norris fires in the first timed lap which is beaten by the Alpines of Ocon and Alonso.
Stopwatch
Verstappen to the top now for Red Bull with a 1m42.938s.
Verstappen heads Perez, Leclerc and Sainz. Ocon is best of the rest in P5.
Russell says Verstappen is driving in an "erratic manner".
Russell had caught up to the back of Verstappen which prompted the radio call.
Stopwatch
Russell now pops in a time for P4 with a 1m43.781s.
Hamilton has logged one timed lap and returns to the pits in P13.
Albon, Latifi, Stroll, Schumacher and Bottas in the elimination zone with eight minutes of Q1 remaining.
Stopwatch
Leclerc goes fastest as he posts a 1m42.865s
Leclerc heads Verstappen, Sainz and Perez. Zhou now moves into P5 for Alfa Romeo.
A pitlane incident involving the Haas drivers Magnussen and Schumacher will be investigated after the session.
Stopwatch
Verstappen back to the top now ahead of Perez. Verstappen lowers the benchmark to a 1m42.722s.
Albon, Bottas, Latifi, Stroll and Schumacher still in the bottom five. Albon is just over tenth from safety.
Crash
Stroll has nudged the barriers at Turn 7 with the nose of his Aston Martin. He keeps the engine going and continues.
By: autosport.com
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