WATCH: Nyck de Vries and Pierre Gasly crash out of Azerbaijan Grand Prix qualifying

It was an early end to Azerbaijan Grand Prix qualifying for AlphaTauri's Nyck de Vries and Alpine's Pierre Gasly with both suffering crashes in Q1.

Dutchman De Vries had a promising FP1 as he took P6 earlier on Friday, but he couldn't make it count in qualifying for Sunday's Azerbaijan Grand Prix having crashed into the looming barriers out of Turn 3, bringing out a red flag with 10 minutes remaining of Q1.

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De Vries therefore lines up a provisional last for Sunday's race, but he has a chance to make it count with the inaugural Sprint Shootout that sets the grid for the Sprint on Saturday – with points paid out to the first eight finishers.

Watch the AlphaTauri driver's incident in the video player above.

Meanwhile, Pierre Gasly's day continued to be fraught with difficulty as he brought out a second red flag in Q1 after crashing out himself. That came after his car caught fire in FP1, with his Alpine team performing something close to a miracle to get it fixed for qualifying.

Replays showed that Gasly carried too much speed into Turn 3, as the back of his car connected with the barrier before the front wing also became caught.

"Yeah, I couldn't stop the car," he said dejectedly to his team following the incident. You can view that incident in the video above.