Charles Leclerc labelled himself as “stupid” and believes he threw away pole position in the wake of crashing out of qualifying for Formula 1’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
Leclerc had topped all three practice sessions at the Baku City Circuit and had already set a time that ultimately secured him a spot in Q3.
But he locked up on the approach to the narrow left-hander at Turn 8 and struck the barriers, with the impact causing terminal damage to his SF90.
It ruled Leclerc out of the remainder of qualifying and he is likely to start Sunday’s race from ninth position, owing to Q3 participant Antonio Giovinazzi’s 10-place demotion.
“I deserve what happened today,” Leclerc told Sky Sports. “I am very very sad for what happened, but I deserved it.
“I have been very stupid, as I said on the radio. I’ve calmed down but I still think I’ve been stupid, this does not change.
“Now we will push to learn from this and come back stronger and hopefully we’ll have a very good race tomorrow.
“But yeah, I deserve this. I don’t want to say anything stupid, but after looking at FP1, FP2, FP3 and Quali 1, pole was possible today and I threw all that potential in the bin, so I’m very disappointed.”
Leclerc dismissed suggestions that running on the Medium tyres in Q2, as opposed to the Softs, contributed to his crash.
“I just braked as much as I did on the Soft, but obviously I was on the Medium and I just locked up,” he said.
“I don’t want it to be misunderstood, there is no problem with the tyres, it’s just myself. So I’m very disappointed.
“You can definitely overtake and I will push for that tomorrow. But for the next three or four hours I will be beating myself up.”
