Leclerc left with mixed feelings after earning P2 in Baku Qualifying as Hamilton describes ‘sitting duck’ moment

Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc was left with mixed feelings after Qualifying for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, admitting that while a front-row grid slot is encouraging, the gap to pole position was “a lot more than we expected”.

Leclerc produced a time of 1m 43.363s on his final Q3 run at the Baku City Circuit, edging out McLaren’s Oscar Piastri by a thousandth of a second and earning P2 on the grid behind polesitter George Russell.

However, Russell’s benchmark lap was a whopping 0.837s quicker, as the Mercedes man built on encouraging practice form to claim P1 and capitalise on team mate Kimi Antonelli’s early Qualifying exit.

Giving his thoughts after Qualifying, and the tow he appeared to receive from team mate Lewis Hamilton, Leclerc said: “I mean, honestly, it was quite a good lap.

“Lewis was in front at three, four seconds, I think, and I managed to do a good lap at the end, but when I see the gap to George, maybe the lap wasn’t good enough!

“Overall, we’ve been on the back foot all weekend. We kind of expected to be very far off after a difficult Friday, but this morning [in final practice] I had a little bit more hope.

“I think in terms of [grid] position, that’s where we expected to be, but in terms of [the time] gap, it’s a lot more than what we expected.”

Asked about the challenge of trying to overhaul Russell on race day, Leclerc added: “We’ll see tomorrow. Our straight-line speed is not our strength, but the pace has been quite strong in FP1 for the high fuel, so I hope it will be the case tomorrow.”

Sixth-placed Hamilton cut a slightly more dejected figure after Qualifying, as he gave his side of the story when it came to Ferrari’s intra-team towing tactics.

“It’s never looked good for me this weekend,” he sighed, with Leclerc almost half a second faster. “It’s not my strongest circuit, for sure, and I think we’re relatively slow on the straights.

“What happened in Q3 is I was ahead of Charles, and on the normal rhythm we were behind somebody, so we were equally in a tow. Then they kind of changed the plan as we got to Q3, which meant I was 25 seconds behind.

“I had no tow at all – not even in the stream of other drivers. I was a sitting duck, basically, in that last one, unfortunately.”

As for his chances of recovering some positions in the race, Hamilton commented: “I don’t really know what to expect. I think all the cars up ahead are very quick, so I don’t really see much happening in the race for us.

“All [the cars with] Mercedes engines are ahead of me, apart from Charles, so overtaking them, I think, will be pretty tough.”