With Ferrari having gone four races without a podium finish, Charles Leclerc’s second place in Baku qualifying is certainly a welcome result. The Monégasque driver will start the Azerbaijan Grand Prix from the front row after securing P2 behind George Russell.
Less encouraging, however, was the gap of more than eight tenths of a second to pole-sitter George Russell, a margin that surprised Charles Leclerc himself.
For Charles Leclerc, this is his fourth front-row start of the season, following his previous appearances on the first row in Austria, Great Britain and Hungary.
An unpredictable Ferrari SF-26
Charles Leclerc did not hide the difficulties Ferrari encountered during the weekend. Those problems had already prompted the team to break the curfew overnight between Friday and Saturday to work on the SF-26.
“We expected to be very far away after a difficult Friday, but already in FP3 I had a little more hope,” the Ferrari driver admitted. “In terms of the gap, it is much bigger than we expected. Our pace in FP1 was quite good with a lot of fuel and I hope tomorrow it can be the same.”
Charles Leclerc then explained the difficulties he had experienced throughout the weekend: “Especially this weekend, it has been very difficult to get these tyres into the right window. We will have to analyse a lot of things. Usually our weakness is straight-line speed, but today George made the difference in the second sector.”
The sector differences and qualifying gaps between the drivers can also be examined through the F1 Qualifying Pace & Sector Comparison.
“The car was quite unpredictable because it wasn’t reacting the way I wanted. And that made me leave a little more margin than I usually do here in terms of the distance from the walls.”
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