F1 Baku, Leclerc charges Ferrari: “I expect a good weekend”

by VALERIO BARRETTA

Leclerc charged after Monza

The last weekends of the Azerbaijan GP have been constantly dominated by Charles Leclerc. Unfortunately for the Monegasque, however, only on Saturday. The Ferrari driver, in fact, has obtained the last three pole positions on the Azerbaijani street circuit, and on at least two occasions without having the best car: the superiority of others in race pace (combined with the engine failure in 2022) forced the #16 to systematically retreat on Sunday and to have the third place of 2023 as his best result in Baku.

For this year’s edition, Leclerc would perhaps trade a pole position for a more solid Sunday, just like what happened in Monza, where the Ferrari driver triumphed for the second time in his career despite starting from fourth place on the grid.

Leclerc’s words

“I really hope so.“, this is Leclerc’s comment regarding the possibility of finally converting a pole into a victory in Baku.In the past we have been quite strong in qualifying here, but on Sunday we have always had problems with tyre management, which is one of our strong points this year. I hope this doesn’t mean we will struggle on Saturday, but I expect a good weekend for us. We don’t expect to be at the level of McLaren or Red Bull, but closer to what we’ve seen in the last three races.excluding Monza. The goal is to try to get a better Sunday than in previous years.

“It’s nice to have this push after Monza, but my job is also to start from scratch, because on a track like this you can pay the price of enormous motivation and enormous expectations“, continued Leclerc. “It’s true that between the victory in Monza and my liking for a track where I’ve been particularly strong in the past you have this momentum and you hope that everything goes well, but I’m just focusing on the present, I try not to think too much about the past. I’m just trying to prepare this weekend in the best way possible and then we’ll see where we end up.“.