It is a bitter second place for Scuderia Ferrari at the 6.003-kilometre Baku City Circuit. Even before any analysis or evaluations, it was clear from Charles Leclerc’s expression. In the Monegasque driver’s case, body language is always an open book, accessible to everyone, and last Sunday it was clear just how much the second place in the Azerbaijan Grand Prix was unsatisfactory for him.
Pole position, leading for 19 laps, then the overtaking by Oscar Piastri, which swapped the roles. The Australian became the hare, while Charles Leclerc became the hunter with several arrows in his quiver to turn things around again. But lap after lap, as Oscar Piastri’s masterpiece took shape, Charles Leclerc’s bitterness grew progressively: once again, victory in Baku wouldn’t be his.
Yet, the first stint of the race had sent a clear signal. After maintaining the lead, the Ferrari driver managed the first five laps with Oscar Piastri in the DRS zone, then he started to pull away. A progressive escape that led him to build a six-second gap by the fourteenth lap. A strong sign. On lap 15, Oscar Piastri pitted to switch from medium to hard tires, a move that Ferrari immediately covered on the following lap. By lap 17, Oscar Piastri crossed the finish line just over a second behind the Ferrari SF-24 of Charles Leclerc: so what happened?
The answer lies in the out-lap. The Australian completed his out-lap in 2.03.253, while Charles Leclerc did it in 2.06.071. The instructions given to Charles Leclerc by the Maranello team were clear, which was to take care of the tires during the out-lap, but the almost three-second difference indicates either a very aggressive start by Oscar Piastri or an excess of caution by Charles Leclerc.
The numbers suggest more of the first hypothesis, given that even Carlos Sainz’s out-lap, which was a 2.05.361, was not far off Charles Leclerc’s time, but Oscar Piastri did not suffer any setbacks from his very fast start to the stint. With the McLaren close behind, Charles Leclerc held on for two laps, but was then caught off guard by Oscar Piastri’s attack.
“Today we lost the win for two reasons,” admitted Charles Leclerc at the end of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix – “The first was the management of the tires during our out-lap after the pit stop. We expected it to take everyone a long time to get the hard tires up to temperature, but that wasn’t the case for McLaren, who immediately brought their tires into the right working window and gained a lot of time. The second was not fighting harder with Oscar when he overtook me. I knew we had a long race ahead, and my goal was to preserve the tires, stay within DRS range, and overtake him later.” – the Monegasque driver explained.
“Clearly, we underestimated their straight-line speed today,” Charles Leclerc concluded, “as they used a setup with less aerodynamic drag than ours, which made them too fast for us to attempt an overtake. Overall, it wasn’t the best day for our team, but we’ll go to Singapore even more determined.”
The positive aspect for Charles Leclerc is that he managed to hold onto second place, which was almost lost with two laps to go. With his rear tires in crisis, Charles was forced to slow his lap times by over a second, allowing the Perez-Sainz duo to close in behind him. The contact between the two ended the risks for Leclerc and the race itself, which was frozen under a virtual safety car until the checkered flag.
The incident added four points to McLaren’s haul from this race, costing Ferrari and Red Bull 11 and 12 points, respectively. If at Monza Ferrari had collected more than the car would have allowed on a purely technical front, the impression at the Baku city circuit is that the potential of the car was not converted into the points that were within reach.
“We were probably a bit too conservative at the start of the second stint,” admitted Frederic Vasseur, “and having to drive in dirty air was difficult for Charles, who ended up damaging his hard tires. We leave Baku with a result below expectations, but it was nice to see that, like at Monza, we were battling with McLaren and were competitive. We need to stay focused and keep fighting because there are still many races to go.” – the French manager concluded.
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