BAKU, Azerbaijan -- Max Verstappen denied Carlos Sainz and Williams a shock pole position in one of the great Formula 1 qualifying sessions, featuring six red flags.
Championship leader Oscar Piastri was one of the drivers to crash out and will start Sunday's race in ninth, ahead of Ferrari's Charles Leclerc, who also hit the wall.
Piastri's teammate Lando Norris squandered a golden opportunity to capitalize, tapping the wall on his own final lap when pole position appeared to be there for the taking -- he will start seventh.
The battling McLaren pair - split by 31 points in the championship race - will look to navigate their quick cars through the pack in a race set to be full of jeopardy. While drivers were crashing out across the field, Verstappen once again highlighted why he is a four-time world champion, nailing his last effort to pip Sainz by a comfortably 0.4 seconds.
Sainz also improved on his late lap to hold on to a front row start. "Honestly, we have nailed the qualifying today," Sainz said after the session. "Every time being on the right tire on the right time and putting together some very strong laps." Had he held on to pole, it would have been the first for Williams since the 2014 Austrian Grand Prix. The team has not started on the front row of a race since George Russell did at the 2021 Belgian Grand Prix.
Racing Bulls' Liam Lawson will start from third -- his best position of the season -- ahead of Mercedes teammates Andrea Kimi Antonelli and George Russell. The New Zealander said: "Honestly, I can't even remember what happened, it was so busy. I said it would be, but I didn't expect it to be like that."
The dramatic session lasted 20 minutes longer than last year's entire Azerbaijan Grand Prix and came just hours after the circuit confirmed a new deal with Formula 1 to host the race until 2030.
The dramatic finish came down to a mix of Baku's tricky track and a light sprinkling of rain late on. Sainz had benefited from being on of the first drivers out on track as the weather changed, going quickest ahead of Lawson and Isack Hadjar.
With many of the front-runners half way round the circuit setting timed laps, Leclerc's crash then nullified the session.
With the weather worsening a first Williams pole position since the 2014 Azerbaijan Grand Prix felt like a tantalizing possibility. "You can start dancing to see if rains harder," Sainz joked to his team during the red flag delay.
When the session went green again, Verstappen immediately looked quick, suggesting the rain was not as bad, but was denied the chance to improve when Piastri made a highly uncharacteristic mistake and slid off the circuit into the barrier at Turn 4. That meant another red flag just as Verstappen approached the line.
With just over three minutes left the remaining runners dashed out again for a late lap. Norris appeared to be right on the limit at the end of the session and on two occasions came close to scraping the wall. He did so at Turn 15, running along the TechPro barrier. He finished a full second shy of Verstappen's time, hinting at how costly that moment was for him.
Verstappen said it was a "long qualifying with so many red flags.
"So it was very difficult to get your lap together because most of the time your tires were not really ready, or a red flag happened. Especially Q3, with also a bit of rain around, it was a very difficult session. In the final lap, you just have to send it. I wasn't even on the best tires that I wanted, because of all the red flags you basically run out of tires.
"I'm very happy with how the weekend has gone so far. From FP1, we were not too bad and we just kept on improving a tiny amount, and then we were there in qualifying, which is of course when it matters."
Ferrari had come into the day with high hopes of a challenge for pole position but there session unraveled in spectacular fashion. Leclerc's crash came after teammate Lewis Hamilton had been eliminated in Q2, despite being fastest in Friday practice and in the Q1 session of qualifying.
It continued Hamilton's underwhelming stint with Ferrari this year. Piastri's and Leclerc's incidents in Q3 prompted two of the day's six red flags.
Oliver Bearman triggered another when he clipped the wall at Turn 3 and stopped on track, while Franco Colapinto ensured Q1 ended under red flags when he whacked the wall toward the end of his timed lap.
Sainz's teammate Alex Albon's brush with the wall had triggered the first one of the day.
He will start 20th, the opposite end of the grid to his teammate.