Leclerc thought he’d reclaim Baku lead from Piastri
Charles Leclerc says he misjudged how the Azerbaijan Grand Prix was going to play out and thought he would be able to re-pass Oscar Piastri to beat the McLaren after being overtaken.
Piastri had dropped nearly six seconds adrift of Leclerc prior to the pit stops in Baku, but closed up on the out lap on hard tires and quickly pulled off a clinical move into Turn 1 to take the lead. Leclerc says he could see Piastri might try to overtake on that occasion but that he wasn’t overly worried, believing the race would come back towards him later on.
“Not really by surprise, because he wasn’t completely straight behind me,” Leclerc said. “He was a little bit on the left. So I could see in my mirrors that he was there and that it was a possibility for him to go there. But I couldn’t really be super aggressive. I still had cold tires. I was really struggling to get those tires into temperature.
“I just thought it wasn’t that much of a big deal if he would overtake me at that point of the race because the race was still long and the DRS would help me to stay within a second of him and then once my tires will be in temperature I could overtake him again. But that was a misjudgment from my side.”
Piastri was able to keep Leclerc at bay and then pulled away from the Ferrari in the closing laps, with Leclerc believing the difference in car set-ups also played a part in him being unable to regain the lead.
“It’s been a pretty frustrating race. We ran two different configurations. They had a lower downforce package. We had a bit more downforce, which made us quite quick in the castle section. However, on all the straights they were flying. And that’s probably where I lost the race. I misjudged that.
“And when Oscar overtook me into Turn 1, I was not too worried. I just wanted to stay within the DRS, keep my tires, and attempt an overtake later on. However, this opportunity never really arose again, just because we were too slow in the straights. Yeah, that was a small misjudgment, which had a big consequence.
“So sometimes it hurts, and it does, but it’s the way it is. On the other hand, it’s been a pretty good last couple of races in terms of performance. This weekend hasn’t been great, because obviously we’ve got Carlos [Sainz] that was in a good position that didn’t manage to finish the race. But within the team, we are in a good position in a good mood and we need to keep pushing in that direction.”