After an exasperating and stifling start to the new Formula One season, Ferrari can finally enjoy themselves. As Charles Leclerc climbed from his car after claiming pole position at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix and pointed vehemently to the prancing horse logo on his torso, its significance was evident.
He and the Scuderia will be energised by a faultless performance. However, this weekend’s results will more accurately define the scope of their challenge to a dominant Red Bull.
In the first three races, Leclerc has suffered a beating. He had a failed engine in Bahrain, a 10-place grid penalty in Saudi Arabia, and a first-lap elimination in Australia.
After a week in which he had to dispel rumors that he was in talks with Mercedes to join the team should Lewis Hamilton retire, and in which it was announced that Ferrari’s racing director, Laurent Mekies, is leaving to replace Franz Tost as team principal at AlphaTauri – a blow after the recent loss of technical director David Sanchez to McLaren – Charles Leclerc gave the struggling team a reason to finally exhale.
As Leclerc acknowledged of his pole position, scrutiny is a part of the job at Ferrari. But it carries more weight when the horse is injured, adding to the difficulty of the task at hand. “It’s good, it feels good, and the whole team needed it,” he stated. It’s part of our job to deal with rumors and pressure, and sometimes it’s difficult to perform under such conditions. But we did a great job despite the difficulty.
Ending Red Bull’s hegemony over the pole position this season gave Leclerc a sense of accomplishment on the streets of Baku, but the Monégasque driver is well aware that the most important part of the weekend is still to come.
He has now won pole position in Azerbaijan for three consecutive years, but on the last two occasions, he has been unable to convert it into a victory.
The jinx must be broken, but it will not be simple. Max Verstappen, the championship leader for Red Bull, will have a role to perform, and he remains optimistic about his car’s formidable race pace despite falling to second, with teammate Sergio Pérez in third.
Before Sunday, however, Leclerc and the rest of the field will have to reset completely for a second full day of competition in Azerbaijan as Formula One implements a new sprint race format. Sprint shootout qualifying, a condensed version of regular qualifying, will set the starting grid for the sprint race on Saturday.
The sprint will be 100 kilometers long, with points decreasing from eight to one for the top eight finishers. Both events will be standalone and have no bearing on Sunday’s grand prix. The sport expects the new format will improve the previous style and foster aggressive racing.
Leclerc can duplicate his Saturday morning effort, but it will be close again. As the sun began to set on Friday in Baku, they could not have been any closer. Leclerc was equally brilliant in his challenge, duplicating Verstappen’s time to the thousandth of a second.
In the final circuits, Leclerc took the lead and immediately found an aggressive but well-judged line, going faster in the first two sectors with a brilliant lap that Verstappen was unable to match to claim pole position with a time of 1:40.203.
Behind them, Mercedes was reminded of the upcoming mission. Lewis Hamilton exerted tremendous effort to finish fifth, but remained a full second behind Leclerc. While compatriot George Russell was eliminated in 11th place in Q2. Hamilton acknowledged that they were losing time on the straights, but with their new design concept not anticipated to make a difference until May’s Imola Grand Prix, battling for third place in Azerbaijan once more appears to be their destiny.
Verstappen leads the world championship by 15 points over Pérez, with Fernando Alonso in third, nine points behind. Leclerc is currently tenth, 63 points behind the leader.
Carlos Sainz qualified fourth for Ferrari, followed by Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll for Aston Martin, Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri for McLaren, and Yuki Tsunoda for AlphaTauri.
Alpine’s Esteban Ocon was 12th, Williams’ Alex Albon and Logan Sargeant 13th and 15th, and Alfa Romeo’s Valtteri Bottas 14th.
The first red flag was displayed when AlphaTauri’s Nyck de Vries crashed out. And the second was displayed when Pierre Gasly’s Alpine struck the barriers at turn three. De Vries will begin from the twentieth position and Gasly from the nineteenth.
Guanyu Zhou was 16th for Alfa Romeo, while Nico Hülkenberg and Kevin Magnussen were 17th and 18th for Haas.
