Championship leader Oscar Piastri crashed out of qualifying for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix as Max Verstappen claimed pole in a chaotic session.

In an extraordinary qualifying which featured a record total of six red flags and lasted almost two hours, Verstappen clinched a sixth pole of the season by delivering a flawless lap at the end.

Piastri, who leads McLaren team-mate Lando Norris by 31 points with eight rounds remaining, smashed into the wall in the final stages of Q3 and will start lower than fourth for the first time this season.

That opened the door to Norris but he too clipped the wall on his final run, which was only good enough to put him seventh on the grid – two places above his team-mate. Williams’ Carlos Sainz capitalised on the chaos to qualify second, ahead

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