The podium obtained yesterday in the Sprint Race proved to be the appetizer of what we saw today during the Azerbaijan Grand Prix. Charles Leclerc scored the first podium of the season in a traditional race for Ferrari in the 2023 Formula 1 World Championship.
In Baku, who started on pole after the great lap in Q3 on Friday afternoon, the Monegasque was beaten only by the two elusive Red Bulls of Sergio Perez and Max Verstappen. The RB19s are too strong on race pace. A situation that had already occurred in the first three races and was confirmed again today.
At the end of the race, Leclerc realized he had given his all. Impossible to do more without reliability problems or accidents at Red Bull.
“Red Bull is on another planet when the race comes,” the Ferrari driver immediately admitted. “So on the flying lap we can play it, but on 51 laps it’s simply not possible. They have much more race pace than us”.
“So yes, as I said yesterday, I think they’ve found something that we haven’t found yet. And that’s exactly where we’re focusing. We’re working hard to try and understand what we can do better in the race, especially to improve performance”.
Charles Leclerc, Ferrari SF-23
Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images
Over the past few days, Leclerc has repeatedly said that he has found the SF-23 improved. The first podium of the season seems to prove him right, but he needs to be understood just how much. At the moment it is difficult to sum up, but it is certain that Ferrari will need more to reduce the performance gap with the RB19s, especially with a full tank in the early stages of the race.
“Honestly, it seems that Ferrari has improved a bit. But when I see the gap from the Red Bulls, I think they haven’t pushed all the way. So I don’t really know how much Ferrari has managed to catch up. The feeling is better, but still a time, the Aston Martins were also very quick today, so we still have a lot of work to do.”
The only tense moment for Leclerc was the finale, with Fernando Alonso making up for it thanks to excellent tire management. Charles, however, immediately understood the intentions of the Asturian from Aston Martin and copied the tactic, bringing home the podium.
“I was pushing at the end. I knew Alonso’s intention was to manage the tires well at the start and then push at the end. He always does. So I tried to do the same thing and, in the end, Fernando was close . But not enough to get me.”
“Even Aston Martin has a better car than ours in race mode. We still have giant steps to make. On the flying lap I can make the difference because I can take more risks, but in the race there was nothing we could do. I’m confident on the updates that the team will bring. The team is strong. I don’t know if it will be enough to reduce the gap”, concluded Leclerc.
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