Leclerc blames himself for losing out in Baku despite dominant form
Having dominated the qualifying session and the opening stages of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, Charles Leclerc failed to convert his pole position into a race victory in Baku.
Having dominated the opening stages of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc lost out to McLaren's Oscar Piastri, who took his second victory of his F1 career.
The Monegasque took his fourth consecutive pole position in Baku on Saturday with a dominant lap, having been the quickest in Azerbaijan in 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024. Despite building up an advantage of over six seconds on the medium tyres, Leclerc lost the lead after the first round of pit stops, and was unable to retake it despite a series of overtaking manoeuvres.
Reflecting on his race, the seven-time F1 race winner revealed that the fact that he was unable to complete a race simulation run on Friday might have played a factor in the 51-lap race in Baku.
“Unfortunately, we didn’t do any high fuel running on my side in FP1/FP2 and we went for a set-up 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.
“Towards the end, in one corner or two I thought that I would put it in the wall. It was very close, but [we ended up] second today. I think maybe McLaren had a little bit less downforce, so in the straights they were very quick and in the corners we were a bit quicker.
“I thought that when Oscar overtook me it was just a matter of staying calm, trying to keep those tyres and overtake him later on, but actually it was a lot more difficult than that. In the straights I couldn’t get as close as I wanted.
Pushed on to explain why he lost out to Piastri despite his impressive speed both in low- and high-fuel configuration, Leclerc said that there were two key factors which helped the McLaren man take his second F1 victory.
“To be honest, we lost the race when I didn’t quite defend as well as I should have at the end of the straight, but it’s the way it is. Sometimes you do mistakes, and I’ll learn from it.”
"We lost the victory based on two factors today. The first was tyre management on our out-lap from the pits. We expected it to take a long time for everyone to warm up their tyres, which was the case for our car, but not at all for McLaren, who got their tyres up to temperature immediately and gained a big amount of time there.
"The second was not fighting Oscar harder when he overtook. I knew we had a long race ahead and my target was to look after my tyres, stay within DRS range and overtake him later down the line.
"However, 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."
