Daniil Kvyat's Friday practice ended rather embarrassingly with a hefty impact into the wall late in FP2. But the young Russian had been looking undeniably fast, and he was able to carry that pace into Saturday's qualifying session - and happily without the mishap.
"It gives you great satisfaction to put in a good lap," said the Toro Rosso driver. "Especially at a track like this as it’s a circuit for brave drivers!
"I brushed the wall on one of my laps, but you need to have big balls around this track to get the best time."
Kvyat's bravery was enough to put him through to the final top ten pole shoot-out round, where he picked up a sixth place starting position for tomorrow's Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
That's the 25-year-old's best grid place since the 2016 European Grand Prix - the first Formula 1 event to be staged on the Baku City Circuit. It's also the first time since his return to F1 that he's made it through to Q3, having narrowly missed out by one place in Shanghai.
"It was a good Qualifying, I had a great lap in Q3," he said. "Conditions were not ideal for anyone because we missed out on track time yesterday, but I generally don’t need a lot of laps to find good pace."
Having scored a single point in the season opener in Melbourne, Kvyat is keenly aware that his starting position in Baku gives him his best chance of netting some serious points since his return to F1 at the start of 2019 after a season on the sidelines.
"Tomorrow’s a long race and we’ll try and put everything together," he pointed out. "I think we have a chance for a strong result. The race can be very unpredictable, so I’ll keep a cool head and do the best job I can.”
Kvyat's team mate, rookie driver Alex Albon, missed out on joining him in Q3 and will start three rows back in 12th place, following a ten-place grid penalty for Alfa Romeo's Antonio Giovinazzi.
"It was a bit of a frustrating end to qualifying, we had the pace for Q3 the whole weekend, just not when it mattered," rued Albon.
"I was struggling with the tyre temperatures and trying to get them in the right range, especially after the big temperature drop near the end of the session.
"Maybe I didn’t get the warm up lap right, because I struggled for confidence when the track was cold and the car started to slide around a bit.
"Tomorrow’s a new day and anything can happen here, we’ve seen how chaotic it can be so it’s all to play for.”
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