F1 MATHS: What does the constructors' standings look like ahead of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix?
Four-time world champion Max Verstappen came out on top of an incident-filled, bizzarre qualifying session at Baku to claim his first pole position for today's Azerbaijan Grand Prix. F1Technical's senior writer Balazs Szabo takes a look at the teams' championship standings to check what is at stake at Round 8 of the 2025 F1 season.
Saturday's qualifying seemed to go on for ever, with a record number of red flags, plenty of yellow ones and a few drops of rain. It finally ended with yet another pole position for Max Verstappen, his very first fastest qualifying lap at this track.
It was only in the closing moments that the Red Bull driver managed to get under the 1m41.595s set by Williams’ Carlos Sainz, with a best time of 1m41.117s. This was Verstappen’s sixth pole of the season, his 46th in total. Red Bull Racing’s first pole in Baku was its 109th.
Tomorrow, Carlos Sainz will line up on the front row of the grid for the 15th time in his career, six of those being pole positions. Liam Lawson was third for Racing Bulls, his best ever qualifying, in a time of 1m41.707s. Alongside him will be Andrea Kimi Antonelli (Mercedes) just one hundredth slower than the New Zealander.
However, the championship leaders Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri will line up from the midfield. The championship leader was sailing through Qualifying, looking right in the mix, but he made a mistake on his first hot lap in Q2, and hit the barriers. That ended his Qualifying and left him ninth with no time set.
It opened the door for his team-mate to steal a march on his team mate, but instead he had a scrappy lap, and that left him down in seventh on a day more was possible.
