Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc recalled a costly error in letting Oscar Piastri pass that saw him fail to convert pole position into victory in the Formula 1 Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
Leclerc scored his fourth consecutive pole position at Baku and led by as much as six seconds ahead of his solitary pit stop.
The Monegasque driver emerged with a 1.5-second margin over Piastri, who then took the lead into Turn 1 on Lap 20.
Leclerc rued not putting up a stronger fight, falsely believing he’d be able to reclaim the lead shortly after being overtaken.
“It’s been a pretty frustrating race,” Leclerc said in the post-race press conference.
“We ran two different configurations. Obviously, [McLaren] had, I think, a lower downforce package. We had a bit more downforce, which made us quite quick in the castle section.
“However, in all the straights, they were flying and that’s probably why I lost the race. I misjudged that and when Oscar overtook me into turn one, I was not too worried.
“I just wanted to stay within the DRS, keep my tyres and attempt an overtake later on.
“However, this opportunity never really arose again, just because we were too slow in the straights.
“So, yeah, that was a small misjudgment, which had a big consequence. So sometimes it hurts and it does today, but it’s the way it is.”
Leclerc: Letting Piastri through a ‘misjudgement’
McLaren’s straight-line prowess helped Piastri get the job down, with his Turn 1 assault coming from quite a distance back.
Still, Leclerc wasn’t surprised by the nature of the move, more so how he couldn’t reclaim the lead.
“[Piastri] 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,” the Ferrari driver explained.
“I couldn’t really be super aggressive, still had cold tyres and I was really struggling to put those tyres into temperature. And 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 will help me to stay within a second of him and [with tyre warmup] could overtake him again.
“But as I said, that was a misjudgment from my side.”
Leclerc worked hard to manage his tyres once Piastri made his move and had several ill-fated attempts at reclaiming the lead before his tyres fell away entirely.
“After 10, 15 laps, I thought that everything was coming together and that maybe towards the end we would be in a better place,” Leclerc said.
“But with the dirty air, I think for 20, 25 laps towards the end, my tyres were completely gone. And again, they were just too quick in the straights for me to attempt anything.”
