The F1 2024 Azerbaijan GP saw a 51 lap long fight for the lead between Oscar Piastri and Charles Leclerc. With Charles putting his car on pole, the odds were looking pretty positive for the Monegasque driver to clinch the win. However, McLaren’s Oscar Piastri put in a mighty drive, managed to challenge the leader and overtook him. Despite great efforts from Leclerc, he unfortunately just missed the win in Baku.
What Did Charles Have To Say?
In a post race interview with Guenther Steiner, Leclerc claimed that it was just the wrong setup for the race. The lower fuel load combined with tyre strategy did not work as he would’ve hoped for them to. He also shed light on the last lap incident between Sainz and Perez stating that it was “a huge shame for Carlos in the last lap.” After an outstanding display of tyre management in Monza, the team were likely expecting Charles to recreate this performance. However, the track sat at a staggering 46 degree track temperature at the time of the race. This battle for P1 truly highlighted the raw pace McLaren has in the bag as Charles went on to say that “in the straights, I couldn’t get as close as I wanted”.
Looking at Charles’ account of the race, it does seem that his failure to reach P1 was not down to mechanical or driver error, Mclaren are simply just too quick. Additionally, after Leclerc missed the win in Baku, Fred Vasseur had a piece to say on the race.
Fred Vasseur’s Take:
Before discussing any further regarding the race, the team boss stressed that Charles was in fact okay. He also stressed that “what ifs” are not important and that the team needed to learn from this race. Fred was confident that “the pace was there”. It was clear to most that Leclerc’s pace on the medium tyre was significantly better than on the hard and the team principle briefly touched on this in his interview. This tyre information will be crucial as we head into another hot street circuit next week for the Singapore GP. The main take away form Fred’s interview seemed to be that Ferrari absolutely had winning pace according to the team principle and also that the team had a lot to learn regarding tyre management and pit stop. These very small margins appeared to be how Leclerc missed the win in Baku.
The team generally seem to be feeling optimistic about the pace of their car. We can only see how this will be proven next week in Singapore.
Feature Image Photo Credit: Scuderia Ferrari Photo Gallery.
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