Charles Leclerc claims pole for Azerbaijan GP as Lewis Hamilton faces stewards

Charles Leclerc put his Ferrari on pole position for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix with Lewis Hamilton facing a stewards’ investigation for “driving unnecessarily slowly”.

Leclerc, who trails leader Max Verstappen by nine points in the championship standings, bounced back from his Monaco misery a fortnight ago, to blow away his rivals.

The Monegasque saw off Sergio Perez, who took advantage of Leclerc’s flat-footed Ferrari team in Monte Carlo to claim his third career win, by 0.282 seconds.

World champion Verstappen lines up in third place, one spot ahead of Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz. George Russell out-qualified team-mate Hamilton for the fifth time in eight rounds this season.

Russell will start fifth on Sunday, two places ahead of Hamilton, who could drop further down the field if he is penalised for his qualifying misdemeanour.

Hamilton, who finished an eye-watering 1.6secs behind Leclerc and two tenths adrift of Russell, appeared to delay fellow countryman Lando Norris in the final minutes of Q2.

While Hamilton progressed to the top-10 shoot-out, Norris was eliminated and finished 11th.

Norris’ race engineer Will Joseph said to his driver of Hamilton: “He is the lead car, he will get in trouble. Don’t let him play silly b******.”

After claiming his sixth pole of the season and fourth in succession, Leclerc said: “All poles feel good but this one I did not expect because I thought the Red Bulls were stronger.

“But the last lap came together and I am extremely happy. I am really excited for tomorrow.”

Hamilton, who heads into Sunday’s race 75 points behind championship leader Verstappen, has endured a trying weekend here and was warned by his team not to drive slowly on his out-lap.

He responded by saying: “I don’t know what