George Russell’s slender world championship hopes were given a major boost when title favourite Kimi Antonelli crashed out of qualifying for Saturday’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix – and he took pole by a mile.
Antonelli badly misjudged the first corner around Baku’s tight ribbon of street track, hitting the wall on the inside and puncturing his front left tyre. He will start Saturday’s race from 16th place.
Russell, on the other hand, was a massive eight-tenths of a second ahead of Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc in second place and Oscar Piastri third for McLaren.
The 20-year-old Antonelli has been imperious this season, almost blemish-free, and leads his Mercedes team-mate Russell by 81 points with 14 rounds of the 23-race season gone.
Antonelli and his race engineer Peter Bonnington discussed how to deal with the smash in the first section of qualifying.
Bonnington told him: ‘We just better park up, mate. We’re not going to be able to fix that.’
George Russell took pole position at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix in a major boost to his World Championship host
Kimi Antonelli crashed out of qualifying, but he is still 81 points ahead of his team-mate
Antonelli: ‘Are you sure?’
Bonnington: ‘Affirm. Stop in a safe place.’
Antonelli: ‘Let me try, mate. Let me try.’
Bonnington: ‘We just better park up, mate. We’re not going to be able to fix that.’ And that is what happened, the instruction followed after Antonelli’s forlorn hopes to resuscitate his afternoon saw his limping car condemned to stop. He was later seen disconsolately seated behind a catchfence.
‘I’m sorry guys. My God,’ he had said.
Bonnington, who has nurtured Antonelli since the Italian arrived at Mercedes as a rookie last year with the daunting task of replacing Lewis Hamilton, replied: ‘No sweat, Kimi.’
Russell, who was strong all weekend, duly claimed his first pole since the Austrian race at the end of June – a grand prix he won, one of his two victories this season alongside Australia, compared to Antonelli’s eight.
But in Baku, both talent and fortune have favoured Russell. He has mastered the circuit, while Antonelli sat out much of Friday’s practice with a hydraulic problem, putting him on the back foot.
However, beware George! Antonelli drove from 19th in Monza at the beginning of the month to victory, albeit with a new engine and its extra grunt. And Russell needs to take lumps, not snips, out of his younger team-mate’s lead if he is going to wrest the title away from him.
But this was a major boost for the Briton – the margin of his pole immense. Red Bull’s Isack Hadjar, meanwhile, will start from fourth on the grid for Red Bull, Lando Norris fifth for McLaren and Lewis Hamilton sixth for Ferrari.
A rare bad day for Max Verstappen, who will start eighth in this race which has been moved forward 24 hours to accommodate Azerbaijan’s Remembrance Day on Sunday.
‘It’s been a while and it feels good,’ said Russell. ‘It’s the biggest margin of my career in any formula. It was the perfect lap in the end.’
