Charles Leclerc is banking on Ferrari’s race pace to help him challenge for victory in tomorrow’s Formula 1 Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
The Monegasque took a somewhat surprising second place on the grid in Baku, with the Scuderia looking off the pace across much of free practice.
Baku‘s long straights was likely to be a significant Achilles’ heel for the SF-26, as straightline speed often has been on many fast circuits this season.
But Leclerc managed to find some extra speed from tows at a good moment to take a front row spot, albeit eight tenths of a second adrift of George Russell.
But speaking after qualifying, Leclerc admitted that the deficit to Russell did not bode well.
“Well, I felt hooked up as well, but maybe not to the right hook when I see the gap with George,” he said. “It’s quite a significant gap. So, yes, I mean, the car felt better than what it felt for the rest of the weekend.
“We’ve had our struggles this weekend and we were definitely not as competitive. But as George said, I think it’s very difficult to get these tyres in the right window, and particularly this weekend. I think probably McLaren and ourselves were a bit in the same boat, where we were really struggling in free practice.
“Some laps were good, but never really consistently there. And in qualifying I felt like we did a better job in that. But, yeah, it’s all relative, and eight tenths and a half is a lot. So, there are plenty of things that we should look at and try to improve, particularly because our weakness normally is straight-line speed, but today Sector 2 is also where George made the difference.”
Charles Leclerc casts hope for race day improvement from ‘unpredictable’ Ferrari
Leclerc lamented the Ferrari’s inability to give him comfort to attack the Baku City Circuit, where every inch is crucial, and could also mean the difference between a clean lap and an accident.
“Overall, the predictability of the car this weekend it has been very difficult,” he said. “Normally, I feel like one of my strengths coming here is being very precise and taking a lot of risk with the distance to the wall.
“This weekend I just couldn’t do that because the car was was not exactly reacting the way I wanted. It was just quite unpredictable.
“I still had that unpredictability in qualifying. It got better, but I couldn’t take the… yeah, I had to take a bit more margin compared to what I usually do here.
Asked whether he feels he can take a victory tomorrow, Leclerc planted his hopes on the SF-26’s usual race day improvements to give him a chance to challenge Russell.
“We’ll try, and we’ll do our best,” he said. “Whether that will be enough, only time will tell. But we know that we have a good race car, more often than not better in the race than in qualifying, and I hope that it will be the case again this weekend.”
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