After securing P2 in qualifying for the 2026 F1 Azerbaijan GP, Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc recalled the team’s and his own struggles this weekend, hoping race pace will be the key to maximizing his result in tomorrow’s race.
Heading into the 2026 F1 Azerbaijan weekend, Ferrari struggled with the consistency of their lap times and the car’s balance during practice on Thursday. In response, team principal Fred Vasseur noted that the team would be busy analyzing data and fine-tuning the setup for today.
Indeed, Ferrari broke curfew to work on their car, and it appears the hard work paid off with Leclerc securing a front-row start in qualifying for the 2026 F1 Azerbaijan GP, where he beat out Piastri by 0.001 seconds in an incredibly tight fight for P2.
Speaking in the official press conference following qualifying for the 2026 F1 Azerbaijan GP, Leclerc reckoned that he felt “hooked up”, but given the gap of over eight-tenths to the Mercedes of George Russell, the 28-year-old questioned whether his feeling was correct.
“Well, I felt hooked up as well, but maybe not to the right hook when I see the gap with George. It’s quite a significant gap.”
Leclerc on slightly improved feeling in qualifying for the 2026 F1 Azerbaijan GP
After Ferrari struggled with consistency in practice, Leclerc noted that the feeling inside the car improved in time for qualifying for the 2026 F1 Azerbaijan GP. Another factor that contributed to the lack of consistency was getting the tyres into the optimal operating “window,” says Leclerc.
“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.”
Having struggled with consistency across all practice sessions, Leclerc believes that the execution in qualifying for the 2026 F1 Azerbaijan GP benefitted the qualifying result, but given the significant gap to Russell, Ferrari had “plenty of things” to review.
“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.”
Struggles to put strengths on display
Having secured multiple pole positions in recent years, Leclerc could be considered an expert around the streets of Baku. However, the Ferrari driver struggled to show his strength on this track because of the SF-26’s unpredictability. While Leclerc struggled in practice, things slightly improved in qualifying. Unfortunately, that slight improvement wasn’t enough for Leclerc to work his usual magic, so he took a more careful approach and earned P2.
“Overall, the predictability of the car this weekend it has been very difficult. 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.”
Leclerc hopes Ferrari’s race pace will be beneficial for tomorrow
Starting from the front row, Leclerc will be looking to maximize his result during tomorrow’s 2026 F1 Azerbaijan GP. Despite the Mercedes seemingly being out of reach, the Monegasque hopes that Ferrari’s race pace, which is usually better than their qualifying pace, will help him mount a challenge.
“We’ll try, and we’ll do our best. 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.”
