Mark Hughes: Leclerc’s key skill that made the rest look average

On Friday, the cars of the four top Formula 1 teams around Baku were only a few tenths apart.

If we take Charles Leclerc out of the equation, this was still the case in qualifying for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.

His Ferrari is as great as ever under braking and in slow, short corners and he was in his usual mesmerising form at this venue, with its high speeds, 90-degree turns, holding walls and low wing settings, as he took pole by over 0.3s from Oscar Piastri in the McLaren.

“Charles makes it look like the Ferrari is the fastest car here,” said an admiring Carlos Sainz.

Maybe it was, but not by anywhere near 0.3 seconds. That time was achieved mainly in Leclerc’s magic zone: the period between the throttle opening and the braking, and the wonderful overlap between those two phases.

On a track with high approach speeds on tight corners and a low downforce setting that naturally makes the car nervous on entry, this skill seems to pay off spectacularly here.

But there is something in the Ferrari’s DNA, perhaps in its mechanical characteristics, that allows Leclerc to make the most of those capabilities in short corners and over bumps on street circuits.

Things went similarly well earlier in the season in Monaco, but on this track you drive a lot on the wings, so Sainz can at least keep up with Leclerc.

But even when the Ferrari was uncompetitive in 2020 and 2021, it had the great mechanical characteristics that allowed Leclerc to take pole position in Baku.

Sainz was third fastest in the other Ferrari, but almost half a second slower than Leclerc. He was on the same tenth as Sergio Perez’s Red Bull and George Russell’s Mercedes.

The top four cars weren’t too different. The big difference between Friday and Saturday was how much more Leclerc was able to squeeze out of himself, as if he had been racing with a bigger lead than the others until it mattered.

“It’s all about braking and trusting that the car will turn,” said Sainz. “He’s unbeatable at that.”

The special features of Leclerc’s unusual technology

Maybe it didn’t look like Leclerc was driving with a lead when he crashed in FP1 on Friday, but that was just the way it was. He came into the lane a little too quickly before the dusty track had found much grip, and opened up Turn 15 as he would a rubberized track. The outside front wheel found only dust instead of grip and he put so much strain on the tire on entry with his unique braking style that the barrier was the next thing he found.

“But that didn’t affect my confidence,” he explained after taking pole position for the fourth time in a row in Baku. “We haven’t changed the car much from FP1 until now. The car felt really good. I was happy straight away.”

Therefore, it was relatively easy to make up the lost track time – even that of FP2, when the power steering of the rebuilt car was not adjusted correctly.

When asked what ties him to this place, he can’t say exactly. “I don’t know. I’ve thought about it. You try to analyze every time you have a good weekend. But I don’t really have a clear answer.”

“It’s a natural fit for my riding style as I don’t have to work hard to gain lap times. For some reason I just feel comfortable with the rhythm of this track.”

But get on board with him, match the steering inputs you can observe with the GPS traces of his accelerator and brakes, and you begin to understand.

He makes everyone else – Max Verstappen, Piastri, Sainz, Perez – look double-edged in the way they throttle and brake. Sainz made a significant set-up change on Saturday that he says gave him much more confidence in late braking – and for large parts of the lap, in the 90-degree corners of Turns 4/5/6, it works for him and he can even get slightly ahead of Leclerc.

But it seems as if the binary throttle/brake/turn took more of a toll on the rear tyres than Leclerc’s beautifully coordinated overlap.

Leclerc brakes earlier, but gives it some gas and manipulates the load distribution between the four tires in a much more complex way. It takes feeling to find the right time to not overload the outside front axle, but still achieve a quick turn without sudden peak loads on the outside rear axle. From Turn 15 onwards, he simply has more tire grip. Much more. He builds his entire 0.5-second lead over his teammate in the last three corners.

In turns 2 and 3, Leclerc never accelerates less than 9%. In turn 5, it is 7%. In turn 16, it is a full 11% – and one gear higher (fourth instead of third like everyone else). The others all stop accelerating at all for a short time after turning the steering wheel into the left-hand bend.

His Ferrari skims the walls just as impressively as it did in Monaco, but the edge is never sharp. He can just let it flow.

How Leclerc’s rivals tried to conquer Baku

Watching Piastri, you can see his commitment – ​​and how close he is to going off the road, how the McLaren makes its way around the track and how Oscar even takes a slight hit to the front right on the exit of the tricky Turn 15.

“That was the most chaotic lap I’ve ever driven in my life,” he radioed afterwards.

When you look at Verstappen or Russell, it’s similar: incredible drivers dominating their cars on a difficult track. But could either of those cars give Leclerc the feeling he needs to experience his smooth flow here?

Verstappen has a history of braking well before the corner and releasing late to get his rotation, but the Red Bull didn’t allow that – just as it hasn’t in recent races. So at race speed it’s perfectly fine, but in the last tenths the understeer says no.

In the end, he was only sixth, two tenths behind his teammate Perez. “We made a few changes before qualifying that made driving more difficult and reduced the connection to the asphalt,” said Verstappen.

“We tried to find solutions in qualifying, but in Turn 16 it just got very loose in the middle of the corner. The combination of Charles and Ferrari is always very strong here.”

“The Ferrari is always so comfortable on these tracks,” said fifth-fastest Russell. “We have to understand what it is like on these tracks.”

How Ferrari’s special engine helps here

In addition to the Ferrari’s great behavior in slow corners, one should not overlook its unique powertrain characteristics. With long intake ducts and a smaller turbocharger than the others, it naturally accelerates super quickly out of slow corners. Or, more commonly, it requires less electric assistance to achieve the same acceleration and can therefore last longer.

The smaller turbo would normally mean less speed at the end of the straight, but its use can help with that, especially when powered by a car with slightly less wing than the competition.

Here Ferrari, Red Bull and Mercedes were using their Spa wings. This meant that Red Bull, as is now common practice, had more wings than the others, despite its much smaller wing. Ferrari had much less wings than Red Bull, a little less than McLaren and probably a little more than Mercedes.

Perez’s greatly improved form at Red Bull

Perez is another Baku specialist and here he recovered from his recent problems with the fourth fastest time, beating Verstappen.

His special Baku sauce is different to Leclerc’s. His approach is much more conventional. He never overloads the front axle, but places it so that he can hit the accelerator early and hard.

It’s repeatable and inspires confidence, which is valuable when there are walls to hit. But he believes the car’s latest upgrade – around the diffuser transition – is “the biggest upgrade we’ve done all year” in terms of its impact.

“We know there is still an issue but we are working to get it in the right direction,” he added. “With the car I’ve had at the last few events, I would have come here with no confidence because of the balance problem we’ve had all season.”

“It’s a development course we’ve taken with the car and some drivers are more sensitive than others. Until it got to this extreme, Max had similar problems.”

In seventh place, Lewis Hamilton’s Mercedes was the slowest of the four top teams in Q3 – because Lando Norris had to go out on track in Q1 due to a mix-up with the yellow flag. “Yesterday it felt fantastic,” said Hamilton, “but today we just didn’t get the tires up to temperature.”

That left him 0.4 seconds behind teammate Russell, less than 0.1 seconds ahead of Fernando Alonso’s Aston Martin and just 0.24 seconds ahead of the remarkable Franco Colapinto, who did a great job for Williams on his first visit to the track.