Charles Leclerc said he couldn’t drive with his usual commitment around Baku as he lacks confidence in his car.
The Ferrari driver has a strong record at the Baku City Circuit where he scored four consecutive pole positions from 2021 to 2024. He took second on the grid for today’s race but was over eight tenths of a second slower than pole winner George Russell.“I felt hooked up, but maybe not to the right hook when I see the gap with George,” said Leclerc. “It’s quite a significant gap.
“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.
“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 two is also where George made the difference.”
Leclerc said part of the reason for his deficit to Russell is because he didn’t feel able to take the same risks he normally can while driving in Baku.
“Overall, the predictability of the car this weekend 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 not exactly reacting the way I wanted. It was just quite unpredictable. I still had that unpredictability in qualifying. It got better, but I had to take a bit more margin compared to what I usually do here.”
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