Charles Leclerc secured his fourth consecutive pole position for the Azerbaijan today, proof that he has an unrivalled level of consistency on the Baku city street circuit which he hopes will finally result in a win as well.
Despite starting from the front in the last three races here, Leclerc is yet to claim victory in the race. He finished fourth in 2021, retired with an engine issue in 2022, and last year was comprehensively beaten by Red Bull.
"The pole position was quite unexpected in '21 and '23 so we didn’t have the pace in the car to win," he explained in parc ferme after qualifying. “In ’22, we had a good car, and then the engine blew up.
"Hopefully tomorrow the pace is there and we don’t have anything that stops us winning it," he said. However it won't be a walk in the park, with Oscar Piastri on the front row and last year's race winner Sergio Perez right behind.
But despite a rocky couple of days for Leclerc which started with a crash in FP1 and a problem component in FP2 costing him track time and leaving him lacking high fuel runs, the Monaco race winner thinks it's looking good for Sunday.
“It hasn’t been an easy weekend, because obviously the crash in FP1, but that didn’t make me lose confidence. I knew that the pace was there, but obviously you’ve got to build back up to speed.
“Then in FP2 we had a problem on a new part we brought on the car and there was something wrong there, so we lost another half an hour, and it’s laps that you don’t really recover. So I was a bit - not worried, but I knew that we had to make up some time.
“I didn’t do a lap with high fuel but it’s been a pretty strong point of the car this year," he told the media. "I'm not worried going into tomorrow’s race. It’s one of my favourite tracks; I really like it.
"Obviously we need to do things right," he acknowledged. "I’ll have to do a bit of homework tonight in order to get ready for tomorrow. But I’m not too worried that we’ll do the best job with our package.
“The car has felt really good since FP1," he reported. "Honestly, we barely changed the car from FP1 to now. Straight away, I felt happy, and the balance remained really good.
“We had to counter the track evolution a little bit, because there’s a lot of track evolution here, but the feeling was there straight away in FP1.
“Even though there were not many laps in FP1 and FP2, that didn’t stop us recovering after that and to be at ease for all the weekend. The car felt really good and everything felt great.
Leclerc was particularly happy with his last lap today which clocked in at 1:41.365s, 0.321s ahead of Piastri, admitting that he had needed to take a few extra risks to pull it off. "It’s amazing to be on pole!" he said.
“The pace was always there and then in qualifying and Q3 it was all about trying to stay as far as possible off the walls. In that last lap I went for it a bit more and the lap time came very nicely.
"It was a good lap, I just took a little bit more risk compared to the first attempt in Q3," he commented. “It was important to just have a lap on the board, and then in the second lap, you just take more risk and see what happens.
“Luckily I finished both of the laps, and they were good laps," he said. "We’ll see whether it’s good enough to win the race tomorrow or not. In the meantime, I’ll just make sure that I am doing the best preparation possible.”
Having his team mate Carlos Sainz starting from P3 will also help him in his aim to finally take the Baku F1 crown. “Let’s say it was the best we could’ve hoped for.
"Normally the even side of the grid has a little bit less grip, so first and third is where you want to start," he added. “Hopefully we can play a team game tomorrow to win that race, but it’s going to be a long race.
"In the past we’ve been very strong in qualifying, struggling a bit in the race. This year we have a stronger race car so I hope that we can finally make it tomorrow.”
Sainz agreed, commenting that: "I think we put ourselves in a very good position for tomorrow. P3 is a good position for tomorrow.
“I’ve never really been 100 per cent hooked up around here in my career. It’s a track that I tend to struggle with a bit," he added. "[But] my race pace yesterday also seemed strong, so it’s all to play for tomorrow.”
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