The Latest Breaking News from Nyck de Vries

Verstappen's countryman Nyck de Vries clipped the inside wall at Turn 6 on the 10th lap which broke the front-left suspension on his AlphaTauri and left him stranded on the morsel of run-off available at the corner.

The Mexican driver took advantage of a pitstop under the safety car to emerge in the lead after Verstappen had led the early phases of the race from polesitter Charles Leclerc.

In the first sprint of the season, which included a new qualifying format (see below), Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc led from pole ahead of Perez, as Max Verstappen (Red Bull) and George Russell (Mercedes) clashed over third. After a safety car interruption, Verstappen retook third from Russell.

A 1m41.697s from Leclerc amid the first runs in the eight-minute SQ3 session proved unassailable, and a second set of laps from both Perez and Verstappen could not topple the Monegasque's searing pace around the Baku circuit.

The first ever F1 Sprint qualifying session took place on Saturday morning, with Charles Leclerc hoping to make it back-to-back poles on consecutive days ahead of Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton

Not for the first time this season, a chaotic qualifying session meant not all of the 20 drivers were able to set a fast enough time to automatically qualify for the race

The Ferrari driver secured his first F1 pole of the year on his final effort of the session, a 1m40.203s, having ratcheted up his pace from a strong opening run in the last part of qualifying to prove unassailable for the two Red Bull drivers.

Leclerc will start ahead of the Red Bulls of Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez in Sunday’s race after the one-hour qualifying session on Friday, which is split into three segments with five cars each being knocked out in Q1 and Q2 before the top-10 shootout of Q3.

De Vries was brought in for the 2023 F1 season alongside Yuki Tsunoda to replace the experienced Pierre Gasly, who was tapped up by Alpine.