Charles Leclerc says he knew from the moment he took to the track in FP1 that he would be in the mix for his fourth consecutive pole position in Baku.
Leclerc’s weekend got off to the worst possible start, with the Monegasque binning has car less than halfway into the first practice hour and then losing much of FP2 to an unrelated steering issue. But he said the issues never dented his confidence, which rocketed to sky-high levels from the moment he took to the track on Friday.
“The car felt really good since FP1 and, honestly, we barely changed the car from FP1 to now,” he said. “Straightaway I felt happy, and the balance remained really good.
[lawrence-auto-related count=3 category=1388]
“We had to counter a little bit the track evolution, because there was a lot of track evolution, but the feeling was there straightaway in FP1 even though there was not many laps [after the crash]. That didn’t stop us to recover after that and to be at ease for all the weekend.”
Leclerc’s form was so strong that either of his Q3 laps would have been quick enough to take pole, with his margin eventually blowing out to 0.321s.
“It was a good lap,” he said. “I just took a little bit more risk compared to the first run in Q3. 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.”
“Every lap I was doing was quite competitive from Q1, and the balance was feeling really good.”
Leclerc is the Baku City Circuit’s most prolific qualifier, this being his fourth pole position at the eight-year-old venue, but the Ferrari driver was at a loss to explain why he’s so effective around the unusual track.
“It looks like I’m very consistent but I don’t really have the magic answer,” he said. I just like the rhythm of this track. I have been thinking about it, and obviously when you have a good weekend, you try to analyze, but I don’t really have a strong answer to it.
“I guess it just goes with my driving style very naturally. Most of the time you have to work quite a lot to try and gain lap time, but there I just feel good with the rhythm of this track for some reason. That makes it a particularly good track for me. “
Despite Leclerc’s single-lap prowess, he’s yet to turn pole to victory in Azerbaijan, his third-place finish last year his best-ever Baku result.
The Ferrari driver’s prospects of converting this weekend remain unclear, with his disrupted Friday meaning he had no time to conduct a race simulation, but the seven-time grand prix winner was optimistic the SF-24 would be up to the task of scoring back-to-back victories two weeks after winning in Italy.
“I didn’t do a lap with high fuel, but it’s been a pretty strong point of the car this year, so I’m not worried going into tomorrow’s race,” Leclerc said. “Obviously we need to get things right, so I will need to do a bit of homework tonight in order to get ready for tomorrow, but I am not too worried. We will do the best job with our package and then we will see if it’s good enough to win the race or not.
“It would be nice! In 2021 and 2023 it was quite unexpected, the pole positions. We didn’t have the pace in the car to win. In 2022 we had a good car and then the engine blew up, so hopefully the pace is there and we don’t have anything which stops us from winning it.
“But before thinking about the final result, there are still a lot of laps around this track, and it’s a very difficult track, so we will see tomorrow. In the meantime I will just make sure that I am doing the best preparation possible.”