Rosberg takes pole as Hamilton compounds mistakes

F1 Grand Prix, GP Europe, Baku Street Circuit

Nico Rosberg has taken pole position for the first ever Grand Prix at Baku, Azerbaijan. Daniel Ricciardo will start from second on the grid, ahead of Sebastian Vettel. Sergio Perez was second fastest in qualifying, but a grid penalty drops him to 7th while Lewis Hamilton stacked up the mistakes to end up in a disappointing 10th place.

During Q1, it was soon obvious that the track was ramping up considerably as drivers continued to lap the street circuit. As Rosberg easily shot to the top of the timesheet, one attempt by Hamilton was ruined as he outbraked himself into turn 15, wisely decided to go into the run-off area rather than risking a crash like Ricciardo and Perez had shown earlier in the weekend.

Everybody ran qualifying on the super soft tyres, and it seemed like they were lasting endlessly, with drivers simply staying out and going on and on to set faster laps.

Moments after Hamilton's miss, Romain Grosjean was also seen in a run-off area before safely rejoining the track. This all caused yellow flag periods that hampered running, just like at the end of the session, where some had to back out of their attempts when it mattered.

This, combined with narrowly matched times around the drop off time resulted in Button getting eliminated in Q1 for the first time this season. He is joined by the usual suspects, including Marcus Ericsson who caused some sparks by rubbing his left rear rim against the barriers on a hot lap.

Q2 was more of the same, with Hulkenberg spinning off halfway into the session. He got away with it without coming close to any wall, but it similarly ruined the laps of several cars behind him, including Hamilton who had just gone fastest through the middle sector.

Around that time, Rosberg set the fastest time, a comfortable 1.7s ahead of Sergio Perez. Behind the Mexican though, there's little more than a single second to 13th position, so enough of an incentive to keep going or return to the pits for another set of tyres. The situation resulted in a very busy track 3 minutes from the end, with everybody but Rosberg out running.

2 minutes from the end, Hamilton found himself in a run-off zone yet again, at the time when he was only 10th on the timesheet. Esteban Gutierrez subsequently missed turn 15, creating yet another yellow flag situation.

Despite what went on, Hamilton apparently just got past turn 15 on his final attempt, and managed to get into second position in the closing stages. Others were less fortunate, with Alonso saying over the radio that "it doesn't get any worse than that, the traffic is unmanageable".

Nico Hulkenberg was similarly disappointed, getting eliminated in 12th position, finding out he was unable to do another lap. Asking his engineer, he got replied "no more fuel, no more time for another lap. You should've gone on in that one". They subsequently disagreed whether Nico was informed about this or not, but that didn't change his situation, making for a disappointing result after showing promising pace.

In Q3, Ferrari topped the times first, before Perez set a 1:43.515 on his first attempt. Rosberg and Hamilton meanwhile started off with a rather slow first timed lap, just like they did in qualifying at Canada and Monaco. On the flyer however, Hamilton locked up again under braking to turn 15, forcing him into the run-off, and thereby also ruining Rosberg's lap as the latter was following up behind him.

Even though that flat-spotted both fronts, Hamilton had no new super softs left, so he continued on those, before stopping out on track 2 minutes from the end after slightly touching the wall and breaking the steering rod on his right front. Just before that, Rosberg did manage to take pole, even while scrubbing the wall himself, although he was lucky not to break anything.

Hamilton's stoppage caused a red flag with 2 minutes and 5 seconds left on the clock. That was just enough for another lap for most of the cars. Massa missed out due to being out on track too late, while Rosberg opted not to try again, having almost a second in hand over Perez.

In the closing stages, Ricciardo managed to improve to third, good for a second place on the grid due to Perez' penalty. Bottas on the other hand aborted his lap early, having tried to overtake Verstappen in turn 1, effectively causing them both to lose precious time.