Qualifying for the F1 Azerbaijan GP did not go the way Charles Leclerc would have liked.
The Monegasque had taken pole for the previous four races at this venue, and entered the weekend hoping to make it a fifth in a row.
However, in Q3, spots of rain began to fall. This added yet another variable to what was proving to be an already difficult qualifying. Whilst on a push lap, Leclerc locked up and hit the wall at Turn 15. He was unable to save his Ferrari and brought out the fifth red flag of the session. This mistake cost him dearly, and he will start the F1 Azerbaijan GP in P10.
A frustrating weekend so far
Throughout the practice sessions and into qualifying, Leclerc has struggled to find the car’s limits. This has left him looking like he is struggling to reach his full potential for the weekend. When combined with the mistake in qualifying, it has left the Ferrari driver very frustrated. Baku is a track that he usually performs very well at, but this hasn’t been the case so far.
“I’m obviously frustrated because it is a track that I normally enjoy and where things flow quite naturally. But it’s been the complete opposite the whole weekend, and I’m just struggling a lot to find the limits of the car and to find the feeling with the car.
“I knew going into qualifying that it was a bit of an uphill work. And I changed quite a lot of the car going into qualifying, and I felt a lot better. Q1 and all the laps on the soft felt much better.
“And then we went on the medium, which we had kept because we thought it was the best tyre. Today, with these temperatures, it was just impossible for me to switch them on.”
The wrong tyres
Throughout the weekend, the data suggested that the medium tyres would be the optimal choice for qualifying as the C6 soft appeared. However, it was after Leclerc had swapped his soft tyres for mediums that he began to struggle.
“I think we were lacking a lot of pace on the medium. I was probably 7 or 8 tenths off before the mistake, and I was pushing like crazy. So, yeah, something felt off there, and we’ll look into it.
“I tried to judge the grip I would have, even though it was very difficult to judge because I had very little grip from the beginning of the lap with these tyres.
“I thought I had an advantage going into quali with the mediums, and then I put them on and kind of regretted thinking I had an advantage because it was extremely tricky.
“We’ll look at what did change on track in order for it to be so difficult. With Q2, first run with my medium, I nearly didn’t make it to Q3. I went long quite a few times.”
Looking towards the race
Charles Leclerc isn’t the only person left disappointed after the F1 Azerbaijan GP qualifying. And there are many people out of position for the start of the race. This provides him with a chance to come back from his qualifying mistake to have a good race, which is something he is hopeful of doing.
“I know that, obviously, we can still have a great race from where we start. That’s my target. So we’ll look forward to tomorrow and do a great race. We’ve normally had very good Saturdays and very bad Sundays here, and I hope to turn the situation around this weekend.”
