Charles Leclerc did not disappoint, for the fourth year in a row outpacing the rest of the field at the Baku City Circuit, to give Scuderia Ferrari HP its 252nd pole position. Rounding off an excellent team result, Carlos Sainz will start right behind his team-mate tomorrow, having qualified third, his best ever result in Azerbaijan. Clearly Leclerc was not affected by his tricky Friday and dominated the top ten shoot-out, outpacing second placed Oscar Piastri by over three tenths of a second. Even Charles’ first timed lap in Q3 would have been good enough for pole. It was Charles’ 26th career pole, which puts him equal with Finnish champion Mika Hakkinen in the standings.
Q3. Charles and Carlos made it through to the final part of the session without too much bother and the team was well prepared for the 12 minutes of track time to decide the order of the top ten places on the grid. Both drivers had two sets of new Softs available and the team sent them out at just the right time for both their runs, so that both Leclerc and Sainz were able to get a tow down the two kilometre straight at the end of the lap. Charles’ first time (1’41”610) was never bettered by any other driver but on his second run he shaved another two and half tenths off his personal best, getting down to 1’41”365. Carlos was quick on his first set, while on his second attempt, he made a slight mistake in the second sector, and although he improved, it was only by one hundredth and therefore he was “only” third quickest in 1’41”805, his best ever qualifying result at this track.
The race. The Grand Prix gets underway at 15.00 local time (13.00 CEST) and it’s always a tough and tricky afternoon, as one can expect at a street circuit. However, unlike other venues of this type, overtaking is far from impossible and so it should be an open race, but the fact that Ferrari has its cars on the front two rows puts the team in a very strong position to deal with any eventuality. Of course, tyre management will be important as it should be a one-stop race. However, the Safety Car has often put in a late appearance which can turn even a settled race on its head. Maximum concentration is therefore required from lights out to chequered flag.
Charles Leclerc #16
I’m satisfied with my lap today. This is a track I’ve always felt comfortable on and I’ve been happy with the feeling in the car from the start of the weekend. We barely changed anything from FP1 in terms of set-up, which is quite rare, and I knew that the confidence was there.Tomorrow will be a long race and tyre management will be key, so we will focus on that and give it our all to bring home another victory for our team.
Carlos Sainz #55
It was a solid qualifying in which I was able to build up confidence as the session went on. Q1 was a bit messy but a smoother Q2 helped, ahead of the final two runs in Q3. On the last attempt I made a mistake in sector 2 and paid the price, but overall we are in a good spot to fight tomorrow with both cars.Now we'll prepare ourselves thoroughly for the race. A good start and especially tyre management are going to be key. Let's race!
Fred Vasseur - Team Principal Scuderia Ferrari HP
It was a very good session, with Charles always towards the top of the time sheets despite yesterday’s crash. I was sure nothing could affect his confidence as this is one of his favourite circuits. I am also pleased for Carlos who made a big step forward at this track: P3 is very good for him and this means we have both our cars in very strong start positions for tomorrow.Our pace in free practice has been good, even if we were only able to do the long run work with Carlos. Now we will focus on ourselves and will prepare the race in detail with the aim of performing consistently through to the end of the race.Baku is a track where it is very easy to make mistakes, from the drivers and from the teams and where overtaking is definitely possible, so we need once more to execute the race perfectly, always maintaining concentration so as to be ready for every possible scenario.