The Monegasque driver will start ahead of the Red Bulls of Mexican Sergio Pérez, 2nd, and championship leader Max Verstappen, 3rd for the sprint race which will start later in the day, at 15:30.
A little more than 100 km long swallowed in about thirty minutes, this race offers points to the championship: from eight points for the first to one point for the 8th.
Before the arrival of the paddock in the streets of Baku, Verstappen, the last winner in Azerbaijan, had a 15-point lead in the championship (69 pts) over Pérez (54 pts) and 24 points over the Spaniard Fernando Alonso (45 pts), qualified 8th for the sprint.
Verstappen will start on Saturday ahead of the Mercedes of Britain's George Russell, 4th.
Bis repetita for Leclerc
In order to determine the starting grid of the GP on Sunday, the drivers competed on Friday in a first qualifying session that had already seen Charles Leclerc shine. The Scuderia driver will start on pole ahead of Verstappen.
The Azerbaijan GP, round 4 of the season, is the first of six races of the year to feature the sprint format inaugurated in 2021. But contrary to what was done until then, the sprint now has its own qualifying session called "sprint shootout", shorter than a classic session.
This first "sprint shootout" in the history of F1 was also marked Saturday by a single red flag at the very end of the first part of qualifying (Q1), when the American Logan Sargeant came to hit a wall, heavily damaging the right rear of his Williams.
On the French side, Pierre Gasly's black weekend continues. After a nightmarish Friday, the Norman did not do better than the 19th time on Saturday, hampered by an exhaust problem. His Alpine teammate Esteban Ocon will start from 13th place.
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