Baku - Lewis Hamilton took a brilliant pole position for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix ahead of Valtteri Bottas on Saturday, with Mercedes securing a convincing 1-2 as rival Ferrari lagged behind.
Bottas led qualifying and then set an even quicker time on his final lap — only for Hamilton to beat him by nearly half a second.
Raikkonen in P3
The British driver's 66th pole moves him one ahead of F1 great Ayrton Senna and just two behind Michael Schumacher's all-time record of 68.
Raikkonen qualified third ahead of his Ferrari teammate Sebastian Vettel, the championship leader.
As it happened: 2017 Azerbaijan GP - Qualifying
After three difficult practice sessions, qualifying also proved tough.
With three minutes remaining a red flag came up, halting the session, after Daniel Ricciardo clipped the wall with the left side of his Red Bull coming out of Turn 6 — prompting an expletive from the Australian driver.