Charles Leclerc says he knew from the second he took to the observe in FP1 that he can be within the combine for his fourth consecutive pole place in Baku.
Leclerc’s weekend acquired off to the worst potential begin, with the Monegasque binning has automobile lower than midway into the primary apply hour after which shedding a lot of FP2 to an unrelated steering difficulty. However he stated the problems by no means dented his confidence, which rocketed to sky-high ranges from the second he took to the observe on Friday.
“The automobile felt actually good since FP1 and, truthfully, we barely modified the automobile from FP1 to now,” he stated. “Straightaway I felt blissful, and the steadiness remained actually good.
“We needed to counter just a little bit the observe evolution, as a result of there was a number of observe evolution, however the feeling was there straightaway in FP1 regardless that there was not many laps [after the crash]. That didn’t cease us to get better after that and to be comfy for all of the weekend.”
Leclerc’s kind was so sturdy that both of his Q3 laps would have been fast sufficient to take pole, along with his margin finally blowing out to 0.321s.
“It was a superb lap,” he stated. “I simply took just a little bit extra threat in comparison with the primary run in Q3. It was essential to only have a lap on the board after which within the second lap you simply take extra threat and see what occurs. Fortunately I completed each of the laps, they usually had been good laps.”
“Each lap I used to be doing was fairly aggressive from Q1, and the steadiness was feeling actually good.”
Leclerc is the Baku Metropolis Circuit’s most prolific qualifier, this being his fourth pole place on the eight-year-old venue, however the Ferrari driver was at a loss to elucidate why he’s so efficient across the uncommon observe.
“It seems like I’m very constant however I don’t actually have the magic reply,” he stated. I identical to the rhythm of this observe. I’ve been fascinated with it, and clearly when you’ve got a superb weekend, you attempt to analyze, however I don’t actually have a powerful reply to it.
“I suppose it simply goes with my driving fashion very naturally. More often than not you must work quite a bit to try to acquire lap time, however there I simply really feel good with the rhythm of this observe for some purpose. That makes it a very good observe for me. “
Regardless of Leclerc’s single-lap prowess, he’s but to show pole to victory in Azerbaijan, his third-place end final yr his best-ever Baku consequence.
The Ferrari driver’s prospects of changing this weekend stay unclear, along with his disrupted Friday that means he had no time to conduct a race simulation, however the seven-time grand prix winner was optimistic the SF-24 can be as much as the duty of scoring back-to-back victories two weeks after profitable in Italy.
“I didn’t do a lap with excessive gas, nevertheless it’s been a fairly sturdy level of the automobile this yr, so I’m not frightened going into tomorrow’s race,” Leclerc stated. “Clearly we have to get issues proper, so I might want to do a little bit of homework tonight as a way to prepare for tomorrow, however I’m not too frightened. We’ll do the very best job with our bundle after which we are going to see if it’s ok to win the race or not.
“It might be good! In 2021 and 2023 it was fairly sudden, the pole positions. We didn’t have the tempo within the automobile to win. In 2022 we had a superb automobile after which the engine blew up, so hopefully the tempo is there and we don’t have something which stops us from profitable it.
“However earlier than fascinated with the ultimate consequence, there are nonetheless a number of laps round this observe, and it’s a really troublesome observe, so we are going to see tomorrow. Within the meantime I’ll simply ensure that I’m doing the very best preparation potential.”
