Sebastian Vettel made it three poles in a row this season after setting a benchmark that would not be beaten in qualifying for the Azerbaijan GP.
The Ferrari driver posted a 1m41.498s on his first flying lap in Q3 and it would go unbeaten, although only thanks to teammate Kimi Raikkonen making a big mistake at Turn 16 on his final attempt having been two-tenths up in the first two sectors.
Mercedes couldn’t quite find the extra speed to challenge Vettel with Lewis Hamilton less than two-tenths behind in second and Valtteri Bottas third, though both drivers were satisfied with their performance.
Daniel Ricciardo benefitted from a small slipstream on the main straight behind Raikkonen after his mistake at the final corner as he just pipped Max Verstappen into fourth on his final lap but Red Bull were again left to rue their lack of power over a single lap.
Raikkonen was very disappointed to only claim sixth after looking on course to put two near-misses at pole behind him in Bahrain and China, later blaming his “f***-up”.
The Finn also had quite a messy Q2 as errors on both attempted flying laps on the Supersoft tyre for him to run again on the Ultrasoft and miss out on starting on a more durable tyre.
Ricciardo was somewhat lucky too as his best time on the red-striped tyre was only enough to make the top 10 by a tenth of a second, causing a brief scare no doubt on the Red Bull pitwall.
In the midfield, it was 2017 all over again with Force India inserting themselves as the fourth best team in seventh and eighth, just ahead of the two Renaults.
Esteban Ocon would just have the edge over teammate Sergio Perez and the memories of Baku last year where the pair collided could well be lingering at the start of the race.
Meanwhile, Carlos Sainz will start ninth as Nico Hulkenberg takes a five-place grid drop for changing his gearbox after a problem in final practice.
That promotes Lance Stroll upto 10th and Sergey Sirotkin to 11th on what was the best day of the season so far for Williams by some margin.
McLaren’s single lap pace woes continued with Fernando Alonso starting 12th but Charles Leclerc enjoyed his best qualifying so far in F1 for Sauber and moves up to 13th just ahead of the demoted Hulkenberg.
Haas also had problems with Kevin Magnussen only 15th and Romain Grosjean having to retire from Q1 after a gearbox issue trying to select reverse after venturing down an escape road.
There was near-disaster at Toro Rosso as Pierre Gasly had to take severe avoiding action at almost 180mph on the approach to Turn 15 to avoid his teammate Brendon Hartley, who was recovering back to the pits with a puncture.
Neither junior Red Bull driver would make it out of the first qualifying segment.
Full results can be seen below:
(Hulkenberg +5 places for gearbox penalty)
