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Charles Leclerc will be hoping to avoid repeating the feat of the unfortunate Juri Vips, who started the F2 race here in Baku in pole and led from lights out before crashing with five minutes remaining.

The Estonian Hitech driver held his position from pole, making it through three safety car periods before finding the wall in the castle section.

His mistake handed the lead to Norway's Dennis Hauger, with the Prema rookie - a junior driver for Red Bull - claiming a first win after the race finished under the safety car.

Carlin's Logan Sargeant finished second and championship leader Felipe Drugovich took the final spot on the podium after moving up through the field from eighth in the opening stages.

Look away now, Charles. Here's what happened in the Formula 2 race earlier on...

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BBC’s chief F1 writer Andrew Benson speaking on the the Chequered Flag podcast: "The trend of the season has been Charles Leclerc will qualify in front, generally Max Verstappen will track him closely in the race and then find a way to get past him.

"It happened in Saudi Arabia, it happened in Romagna and Miami.

"Red Bull will be fancying their chances."

Cactus Jack: Hamilton DIDN'T get a penalty? I'm stunned. He was parked on track he was going that slow.

S&J Mackay: What are the odds on a safety car or red flag caused by Stroll or Latifi?

Jeremiah Kariuki: Last race Ferrari made some unforced errors. They may have learned, but Red Bulls may pressure Ferrari for more tactical blunders. This is a race for Perez to shine again unless Red Bulls wish to have Verstappen win it. Though Charles has the edge.

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A maiden pole position was within touching distance for Carlos Sainz but sadly for the Spaniard, his eagerness to reach the top just fell short and a spot on the second row in fourth is where he starts in Baku.

"Quite a positive day despite the final result," tweeted Sainz. "I felt more comfortable when pushing the limits.

"Took some extra risk on the last attempt and missed out on a better result. Tomorrow anything can happen. We'll go full attack."

So, if George Russell and Lewis Hamilton were fifth and seventh respectively, who split the Mercedes pair? Step forward, Pierre Gasly.

The Alpha Tauri driver was 0.079secs quicker than Hamilton in Q3 and sixth is the highest qualifying position the Frenchman has picked up so far this season. It will also be a major confidence booster for Gasly after finishing the last two races outside of the points.

On the whole it was a positive day's work on both sides of the Alpha Tauri garage, as Yuki Tsunoda's eighth place handed the team their strongest quali performance in eight races.

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Former McLaren mechanic Marc Priestley speaking on BBC's Chequered Flag podcast: "The only part to qualifying, as it often is on a street circuit, is determined by how many mistakes that are made.

"Tiny little errors, little snaps of oversteer, little kisses of the wall, tiny snatch of break. We didn’t see any of that from Charles Leclerc in the moment it really mattered.

"He strung the whole thing together and pulled a lap out of the bag that I think even surprised him.

"What he hasn’t been able to do is convert that into race wins and that’s his biggest worrying going into the race."

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A small consolation for George Russell is he is in prime position to continue his streak of finishing in the top five of every race this season.

Plus, racing in Baku can produce cuckoo results, so a maiden F1 win isn't that crazy a thought.

First things first though, Russell has to try and tame the Mercedes. "They’re not easy beasts to control," he said. "We are doing everything we can to gain more information and to take some steps forward, but it’s seemingly a little more difficult at the moment than we would’ve liked.

"But we’re working as hard as we can to get on top of this and find more performance."

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If you hopped in a time machine and travelled back to the end of the 2019 Azerbaijan Grand Prix and told Lewis Hamilton he had just said, in 2022, Mercedes were miles off the pace, he would probably give out a hearty laugh and say 'get out of here.'

Why? Because three years ago the Silver Arrows set an all-time record of four consecutive one-twos at the start of a season in Baku. Former team-mate Valtteri Bottas was the winner that day with Hamilton right up with him.

Lewis Hamilton escaped any further punishment after he was investigated by the stewards for "driving unnecessarily slowly" at the end of Q2.

Lando Norris' McLaren engineer was certainly not amused by the Mercedes driver, telling Norris over team radio not to let Hamilton "play silly ****".

In a statement, the FIA said that although Hamilton did slow in order to achieve a tow on his fast lap, "the delta time was respected" by the seven-time world champion and he was also off the racing line.

Andrew Benson
BBC Sport’s chief F1 writer

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Lewis Hamilton’s difficult season continues. On Saturday, he was out-qualified by team-mate George Russell for the third time in a row, and the fifth time in eight races. As usual, though, the reality is a little more nuanced. In Monaco, for example, Hamilton did not get a run on new tyres in final qualifying so there was no fair comparison possible. And where fait comparisons are possible, it’s actually three-three. And this weekend in Baku, Hamilton was running what team boss Toto Wolff described as an experimental set-up, the result of which was: “The car was porpoising more and bottoming out to a degree that it became dangerous.”

Hamilton said: “We’re making a lot of changes but always coming up with the same conclusion, which is most often bouncing, which loses us a lot of performance. And then all the performance is when you put the car low so we say: ‘OK, let’s take a beating in our backs and necks and get the car as low as possible for performance.’ (Mine was) a little bit lower and it’s bouncing a little bit more than the other car but we’re still there, we’re just very slow on the straights so it might be a struggle in the race.”

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Mercedes boss Toto Wolff says Lewis Hamilton has been trying out different set-ups on his car as the team try to get to the bottom of their performance problems.

"Lewis has been trying some quite experimental parts of the car and there was a different floor solution on his car that didn't work," Wolff said.

He added that although Hamilton has now lost out to Russell in Spain, Monaco and Baku, it was "too early to identify a pattern".

"I am very close to it and I see one session one is faster and then next the other is," said Wolff.

Have a read of the full story here

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Mercedes' Lewis Hamilton speaking to Sky Sports: "The stuff I have been trying has not worked out as well as it has.

"It is what it is and we are faced with this reality - we just need to keep working through it.

"It is crazy to think we are that far off the two teams ahead of us but we are right with the pack behind.

"We need to keep our heads down and get good results today.

"I am conscious of the bouncing and whether we can make it through the race with the bouncing. We are not that quick on the straights. It’s a track that you can overtake on but it is a track we are at risk of being overtaken on due to other people’s speed so we just need to make sure we get good exits.

"We will do whatever we can, I hope we get some good points."

Over at Mercedes HQ and although George Russell was fifth, Lewis Hamilton starts seventh on the grid and conceded the Silver Arrows are nowhere near able to compete with Red Bull and Ferrari.

"They’re in a completely different league," said Hamilton, who won the Azerbaijan Grand Prix in 2018.

The seven-time world champion added that Russell is basically on pole and he's starting third in the race of the best-of-rest cars.

Andrew Priestley: 1st: Verstappen, 2nd: Perez, 3rd: Leclerc. Not the boldest of predictions, but with changes for multiple safety cars/red flags, it provides a chance for a midfield runner to make a huge jump up the standings. Lando Norris to finish in the top 5 from P11 on the grid.

Shaun B82: Winner: Verstappen; Unexpected podium: Russell and Hamilton; Outrageous prediction: Leclerc, Sainz and Perez all to crash out.

Andrew Benson
BBC Sport’s chief F1 writer

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Max Verstappen finds himself this weekend in the uncomfortable and very unfamiliar position of having been out-qualified by his team-mate for the second race in a row. The reasons were exactly the same as in Monaco. On a street track, where a responsive car is key, Verstappen is not in his happy place with his Red Bull’s understeer balance, whereas Perez is. “Just consistently a bit off,” Verstappen said. "So, just a bit tricky to find, again, a good balance front-to-rear throughout the weekend, qualifying.” In the race, though, this is less of a problem - in fact the car will trend away from understeer as the tyres degrade. Verstappen is a long way from out of this yet.

Verstappen gave his verdict on another Saturday where he didn't feel 100% content with the car's set-up.

World champion Max Verstappen has only claimed one pole position this season but that hasn't hindered the Dutchman when it comes to securing a race win on a Sunday.

Although, with Verstappen being out-qualified by team-mate Sergio Perez for the second consecutive weekend and the title fight so close, could the mood change in the Red Bull ranks if the Mexican picks up the better result again today?

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