During the sprint race of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, Scuderia Ferrari Monegasque driver Charles Leclerc had a close encounter with a cat on the Baku circuit, which required him and the Safety Car driver to take evasive action.
The Ferrari man had led the Azerbaijan Sprint race after starting from pole position when the Safety Car was deployed on the track due to debris caused by Yuki Tsunoda. On lap five, as they rounded turn one behind the Safety Car, Charles Leclerc spotted a stray cat and reported it over the team radio. Unfortunately, his message was misinterpreted as him reporting a “cut” on his car.
Charles Leclerc clarified the situation in the post-race press conference and explained that the Safety Car had to brake to avoid hitting the cat, but it wasn’t too bad.
“I said a ‘cat’, which is different!,” Charles Leclerc explained in the post sprint race press conference. “There was a cat in the middle of the road and the Safety Car had to stop. But I think I was probably the only one who saw that. In the exit of turn one, there was a cat and the Safety Car braked. It wasn’t too bad.” – he added.
The Azerbaijan short race resumed on the following lap, but the Ferrari man eventually finished second at the Baku City Circuit, four seconds behind the Red Bull of Sergio Perez. Despite this, Charles Leclerc was encouraged by the improved performance of his Ferrari team compared to earlier rounds and will start on pole position again for tomorrow’s grand prix.
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“Basically once you start with the tyre degradation, that’s where they started to go away or that Checo started to go away,” Leclerc explained. “So from that moment onwards we had a little bit of a disadvantage. I don’t know how much of a fight it was, but I tried my best. We are still lacking some pace in the race. This is definitely where our focus is at the moment. It’s been the case now since quite a bit, so we are working on that, trying to find something for the races. In qualifying, we seem to be okay. Having said that, I believe we did a step forward. I mean, if you look at Australia and here we are, we are better. We are not yet at the level of Red Bull, so still a lot of work to do.” – the Ferrari driver concluded after the Sprint race.
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