Charles Leclerc has insisted that Ferrari must review the circumstances which saw him lose vital time to Oscar Piastri in the pits in Formula 1’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
Leclerc retained his pole position advantage at the outset in Baku and appeared on course to be cruising to the win when he opened up a six-second lead over Piastri.
However, Leclerc’s huge advantage would be slashed when he pitted two laps later than Piastri, who was around 1.5 seconds behind once the Monegasque emerged.
Piastri capitalised on having generated more temperature in his Hard rubber to edge into DRS range and he used that to complete a brave move into Turn 1 on Lap 20.
Leclerc conceded that he was surprised with how much his gap was eroded as he revealed Ferrari’s pre-race estimations indicated the undercut would be less potent.
“We expected the undercut today to be a very difficult thing to do, because we thought that the warm-up on the Hard would be extremely difficult,” Leclerc explained.
“I don’t really have the explanation yet because I haven’t gone into details.
“But we’ve got to look into how the gap went from six seconds to one and a half, because that is definitely not what we expected. And that is a lot.
“Even on a track where undercuts are big, it’s still four seconds and a half or four seconds – a lot of lap time loss, which I don’t exactly know why and where we’ve lost this lap time.
“So this will be an analysis. But when we speak about that amount of lap time, I think it will be straightforward.
“And we’ll see very quickly whether they just had a much better warm-up with the Hard than us or whether we’ve lost it anywhere else.”
Ferrari’s pit stop timing hampered Leclerc
Leclerc has acknowledged that Ferrari should have avoided being complacent and pitted one lap earlier to ensure that it retained a healthier margin over the McLaren.
Asked to pinpoint the one thing that he would have changed on the strategic side with his race, Leclerc responded: “Well, stop a lap earlier.
“I think that’s it, to try and keep the gap to Oscar behind and to not have that pressure when you warm up the tyres on a track like this. It’s never the position you want to be in.
“But again, it’s always very easy to change things after the race. And today, Oscar and McLaren have done a better job than me and Ferrari. And they deserve to win.”
Leclerc’s Ferrari team-mate Carlos Sainz, who started third, was unable to score points as a late-race collision with Sergio Perez saw both drivers end up in the barrier.
Nevertheless, Leclerc outscoring Max Verstappen, who classified fifth, in the sister Red Bull has seen the Italian marque now 31 points behind the second-place team.
