Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc started the Azerbaijan Grand Prix in pole position, his fourth consecutive P1 on the Baku Circuit, but lost his grip on the lead after McLaren’s Oscar Piastri edged past the Monegasque on Lap 20.
It was a hot day of racing on the Baku City Circuit, with temperatures reaching 46°C on the track by the time the drivers assembled on the grid on Sunday 15th September.
Monegasque Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc began from P1, his fourth consecutive pole at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix and the 26th of his career, while his teammate, Carlos Sainz, sat behind him in P3.
But it was the driver in P2, McLaren’s Oscar Piastri, who Leclerc had his eye on from the start and then throughout the race.
26-year-old Leclerc maintained his position from the moment the lights went out until he headed into the pits on Lap 17 for his one and only pitstop of the race. Leclerc returned to the track ahead of Piastri, who had stopped a lap earlier, but it didn’t last.
The 23-year-old Australian made his move on Turn 1 of Lap 20, putting Leclerc on the back foot. What followed was a long duel between the two, but despite all his efforts to regain his position, the order was set.
There was plenty of drama elsewhere on the track. Fellow Ferrari driver Sainz looked as though he was going to take P3 in the closing stages of the race after an attack on Leclerc backfired for Red Bull’s Sergio Pérez. Sainz took advantage of the mishap and moved beyond the Mexican for third place, but the two soon collided and crashed out of the race, leaving the final podium spot open to Mercedes’ George Russell.
The race ended under a Virtual Safety Car due to the collision between Pérez and Sainz, with Piastri making the most of the unusual last lap to well and truly pull ahead of Leclerc. The young driver sailed in under the chequered flag with a near 11-second lead over the Monegasque.
In a post-race interview with former Haas Team Principal Guenther Steiner, Leclerc admitted that the race for first place may have been over from the moment of his Lap 17 pitstop.
“On the medium [tyres], we were very competitive and the car felt good,” he explained. “Unfortunately, we didn’t do any high-fuel running on my side in FP1 [or] FP2, and we went for a setup direction that maybe in the race was a bit more difficult to manage. Especially on the hard tyres. I was really struggling to just keep those rear tyres, and towards the end, I really thought that… I would put [the car] in the wall. It was very close.”
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Later, facing similar questions in the press conference, he added, “When Oscar overtook me, I was quite calm in the car. I just was focusing on my tyre management. After 10, 15 laps, I thought that everything was coming together and that maybe towards the end, we will be in a better place. But with the dirty air, I think for 20 [or] 25 laps towards the end, my tyres were completely gone. They were just too quick in the straights for me to attempt anything.”
He admitted that he wasn’t fully satisfied with his P2 finish in comments to the Ferrari press team at the end of the day, saying, “We underestimated the speed they had on the straights today, running a lower downforce package than us, which made them too fast to attempt to overtake them. Overall, it wasn’t the best day for our team, but we now head to Singapore and will come back stronger.”
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Photo credit: Direction de la Communication / Juliette Rapaire