Ferrari explains Charles Leclerc's strategy for the Azerbaijani Grand Prix

Leclerc gave himself a hard job on Saturday, escaping qualifying as pole position seemed to be at the rendezvous and started from eighth place. Unlike the others who had reached the Q3 and took it in advance, Leclerc was on a middle tire at the start of the race instead of a soft tire.

On this ground, he was the fastest man on the circuit in this relay, climbing the ladder and leading the race from lap 14 to lap 34 while others stood in front of him. At one point he was perfectly ready for any deployment of the safety car because he could have actually had a free pit stop and had the opportunity to switch to a hard tire to get to the car. at the end of the race.

The odds for this to happen and the benefit he had benefited from before quickly faded, people around him stopping for intermediate tires and he struggled to keep up with it. pace. Without a safety car, the fastest arrival was a one-stop race with very little strategic variation available. Ferrari decided to leave Leclerc absent until Mercedes Valtteri Bottas and Lewis Hamilton drivers overtook him. At this point, his chances of getting on the podium had practically disappeared.

Mattia Binotto, team leader, said: "Certainly, yes, it could have been a different bet, maybe stopping earlier with these tires or trying to last a long time on the medium. But you can still discuss different solutions at the end of the race by looking back. But overall, we did not do anything wrong, for example. "

Binotto said the race was complicated by the fact that Leclerc had lost order after his qualifying mistake.

"Yesterday, I think we had a good car for quali, we could potentially have been in pole position, we did not do it.

"And I think races are certainly a different issue, the reason is a different day than the first one, I think staying in front or staying out is very different from managing your pace, your tires. clean air is certainly much easier, so I think our position today has also been affected by our position on the grid, at the beginning, but not only – the others are certainly very strong and are facing us to a very strong competition ".

Leclerc said he refused to be carried away by his pace compared to other players early in the race, knowing what strategies would use this strategy.

"Of course, in the car, you're always optimistic, otherwise you lose hope and it's not good, obviously you always hope for something better, but also realistically, we were on a different strategy, so did not mean anything at this stage of the race, I knew the race would be very long and I focused on myself to be as fast as possible on this average course. "

He also echoed his boss's feelings about the heaviness of his mistake Saturday for Ferrari's chances and said he had lost all hope of catching the leaders after his first stop.

"I think a lot of people thought we were struggling, which I do not think, because I just did not insist on trying to reduce the gap. the radio early enough in this race if there was a possibility to come back to the front of the pack, and the answer was negative because the gap was too big.From this moment, it was about keep the tires and try to achieve the best lap when I had the opportunity to do it.

"Do not look at the pace since the beginning of the slowdowns, it's not our pace, we were just trying to do the best lap.