F1 Azerbaijan GP: “I’ll do absolutely everything to win,” Charles Leclerc makes his goal clear after snatching sprint pole in Baku

Charles Leclerc will start the Azerbaijan GP sprint on pole position, and he's left absolutely no doubt - he will try to beat the Red Bulls to the win.

F1 Azerbaijan GP: “I’ll do absolutely everything to win,” Charles Leclerc makes his goal clear after snatching sprint pole in Baku

Charles Leclerc

To everyone’s surprise, Charles Leclerc snatched pole yesterday, making it three years in a row that he’s taken pole in Baku. At least in his hands, the Ferrari SF-23 seemed to have pace. His teammate, Carlos Sainz, though, struggled with car balance issues. Nonetheless, this is a good sign for Ferrari, and especially Leclerc, who have struggled this season. The Monegasque only has 6 points at this stage of the season.

Now, he’s repeated his result – he’s taken pole for the sprint race today. Considering that there are not as many laps, tire degradation should not be as high of a factor. This means he has a good chance of winning out in the sprint, even if he may not be able to triumph in the feature race. It’s all to play for, also for his teammate, who will hope he has better race pace than one-lap pace.

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In his post-sprint shootout interview, Leclerc made it clear that he’s going to go for the win. Nothing less is ever acceptable at Ferrari, even when their season hasn’t gone so well. Speaking to Naomi Schiff, he commented: “With the soft it was a little bit tricky, because you get in Q3 and we haven’t driven on this tire since yesterday. It’s not a long time ago, but the conditions are very different, it was behaving much differently.”

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The Monegasque continued: “The rear overheated on the second lap, I tried to push a bit more to gain some lap time as I was behind my first best lap time, and I lost it in turn 5. At the end, it doesn’t have any consequence on qualifying.” He also mentioned Sainz, who had to abort his last run due to Leclerc’s crash: “I don’t know about Carlos behind me, it’s a shame if he was improving. But, yeah, very happy with the first lap, and now we have to confirm that in the race.”

Read More: F1 Azerbaijan GP: “As Verstappen did last year,” Charles Leclerc’s Baku pole triggers outlandish fan theories of Ferrari championship triumph

Charles Leclerc: “We need to be realistic” about chances against Red Bull

Charles Leclerc
Charles Leclerc

Of course, just taking pole does not seal a race win. All the points are given out for the races. Charles Leclerc knows that well, having lost race victories from pole on many occasions. He has a better chance of it in the sprint, but for the feature, the outlook is not particularly good. When asked how he will tackle the race, the Monegasque said: “Well, we’ll go for it, but we also need to be realistic, and till now, we have been on the backfoot in the race, especially.”

He added: “The Red Bull seem to be a step ahead. So, let’s see how it is, hopefully we have a good surprise. I think we improved the car quite a bit, but today we’ll have more of an answer in the race to see where we are competitive.” When asked if he reckons he can take the fight to the Red Bull, Leclerc replied: “Oh, I’ll do everything for it, and we are here for that at the end. Ferrari needs to be on top, and I’ll do absolutely everything [I need] to win.”

It will not be easy to hold back the Red Bull pairing. The top 3 is the same as it had been in last year’s race, with Leclerc on pole, Sergio Perez sharing the front row with him, and Max Verstappen behind. Then too, the Monegasque lost his win through a mechanical failure. This will be less of a worry – the real problem is that the RB-19 has been pretty dominant in race pace. But Leclerc is motivated, and he definitely has a chance in the sprint.

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