Charles Leclerc will start from pole position in Baku for the fourth time in a row. The Ferrari driver has not yet won a race at this city circuit, but Charles hopes that he will succeed this time.
Q: Charles, brilliant performance. Tell us about your last lap…
Charles Leclerc: I made a good circle. I took more risks than the first attempt in the final. It was important to show some time first, so that I could take more risks on the second attempt. Fortunately, both my circles turned out good.
The car drove well from the first practice. To be honest, we hardly changed the settings. From the very first time on the track I was happy with the behavior and the balance of the car. We changed the settings a little bit to the changing track conditions, but the driving experience remained exactly the same as in the first session, although I did not do so many laps in Friday practice. However, this did not prevent me from staying calm all weekend.
Q: This is your fourth pole position in Baku. How do you do it?
Charles Leclerc: I don’t know, but I never thought about it. When you have a successful weekend, you try to analyze it of course. But I don’t have a clear answer to your question.
I think the circuit just suits my driving style, because most of the lap is spent steering and trying to make up time. For some reason I have always found my rhythm on this circuit and that is why I manage to show good results.
Q: You said you didn’t change the car’s settings practically. What can you say about the pace over the long distance? How confident are you before the race?
Charles Leclerc: I didn’t drive with a full tank, but this year the race pace is the strong point of our car, so I’m not afraid of the race, but of course everything has to be done correctly.
There is still some work to do tonight to get me ready for tomorrow, but I am not too worried. We will try to get everything out of the car and see if it will be enough to win or not.
Q: During qualifying you complained that nobody accelerated you. Did you have agreements about this with your partner, but they were not carried out?
Charles Leclerc: No, no, nothing to do with Carlos. I was just talking about the fact that I was the first in a group of cars and there was no one in front of me.
We didn’t have anything planned between our cars, I just wanted someone from the other team to be in front of me, because I didn’t want to be first.
I saw how Max Verstappen gained a lot of time in the third sector in the second qualifying session through the slipstream and because of that I just didn’t want to miss out on pole position in the final. I wanted to make sure the team knew how important this was for the final.
Source: F1 News
I am Christopher Clyde, an experienced journalist and content writer with a passion for sports. I have been writing about Formula 1 news for the past five years and am currently employed as an author at athletistic.com, one of the top sports websites in the US.
