The three reasons Leclerc lost a potentially dominant victory at Baku

Following a dominant performance early on, Charles Leclerc was left frustrated after the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, with the Monegasque highlighting three factors that have derailed his race at 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 and 2023 previously. 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 issues in Baku, Leclerc highlighted three factors that derailed his race on Sunday. The Monegasque has revealed that he misjudged the straight-line speed of the McLaren as he had believed that he would be able to retake the lead from Piastri in the closing stages of the race.

"It's been a pretty frustrating race. We ran two different configurations. Obviously, they had, I think, a lower downforce package. We had a bit more downforce, which made us quite quick in the castle section.

"However, in all the straights they were flying. And that's probably where I lost the race. I misjudged that. And when Oscar overtook me into Turn 1, I was not too worried. I just wanted to stay within the DRS, keep my tyres, and attempt an overtake later on.

"However, this opportunity never really arose again, just because we were too slow in the straights. Yeah, that was a small misjudgement, which had a big consequence. So sometimes it hurts, and it does today. But it's the way it is. On the other hand, it's been a pretty good last couple of races in terms of performance.

"This weekend hasn’t been great, because obviously we've got Carlos that was in a good position that didn’t manage to finish the race. But within the team, we are in a good position in a good mood and we need to keep pushing in that direction."

In addition, the seven-time F1 race winner confirmed that his car did not behave on the hards as on the mediums, and he lacked grip and confidence on the white-walled tyres.

"Straight away. Straight away. As soon as I got out of the box on the Hard, we just didn't manage to find the grip that McLaren had on those tyres. And then again, when Oscar overtook me, I was quite calm in the car.

"And I just was focusing on my tyre management, which I did. And 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, 25 laps towards the end, my tyres were completely gone. And again, they were just too quick in the straights for me to attempt anything.

As a third factor, Leclerc stated that he did not defend his position from Piastri, which in hindsight turned out to be the race-deciding mistake.

"Not really by surprise, because he wasn't completely straight behind me. He was a little bit on the left. So I could see in my mirrors that he was there and that it was a possibility for him to go there.

"But again, I couldn't really be super aggressive. I still had cold tyres. I was really struggling to put those tyres into temperature.

"I just thought it wasn't that much of a big deal if he would overtake me at that point of the race because the race was still long and the DRS would help me to stay within a second of him and then once my tyres will be in temperature I could overtake him again. But as I said, that was a misjudgement from my side."

Pushed on to explain whether Ferrari have produced a car with the recent upgrades that is capable of winning on every type of circuit, Leclerc insisted only more traditional tracks like Austin will show the Scuderia's real progress.

"Not yet. I think Baku, Monza and probably Singapore as well. These three races have very specific characteristics for cars. So we've got to wait maybe for Austin that will be a bit more of a normal track again to understand whether we've done the steps forward we expected.

"But in these last two races plus Singapore, we need to maximise the points and take opportunities if we have opportunity to actually win races. Today, I felt like we've missed that opportunity.