Leclerc in Baku: four poles, no wins, and a back-of-the-grid start on the cards

A one-sided love affair

From 2021 to 2024, nobody beat Leclerc over one lap in Baku. Four seasons, four poles – the kind of qualifying dominance few drivers can claim at a single track. The problem is Sunday. An engine failure in 2022, second place in 2024 behind Oscar Piastri after a long duel: the Azerbaijani circuit has always offered him its hand on Friday, only to pull it away when the points are handed out.

Then there are the crashes. In 2019 and again in 2025, his qualifying ended in the wall. The Ferrari driver knows exactly where the trap lies: Turn 15, which he himself names as his main danger here. Baku is all about balancing commitment against risk, and he has sometimes tipped the wrong way.

A penalty by choice, not by accident

It all goes back to Monza. The power unit damaged in his lap-two crash at the Parabolica was eventually cleared after inspection. As a precaution, though, Ferrari had set it aside in Madrid, forcing Leclerc to race an older, less potent unit. Rather than keep patching things up, the Scuderia plans to fit its latest power unit evolution in Baku, even if that triggers a grid penalty.

The timing is no coincidence. With its huge main straight, Baku is one of the easiest places on the calendar to make up ground. Frédéric Vasseur put it simply: Baku should suit the team rather well. In other words, if a penalty has to land somewhere, it might as well be here.

The Antonelli precedent

Winning from the back is no fantasy this season. At Monza, Kimi Antonelli started 19th and went on to win comfortably for Mercedes. In his Motor Sport column, Mark Hughes points out that Baku ticks several boxes: historically frequent safety cars that can reshuffle strategies, a layout that rewards overtaking, and a technical section where Leclerc's car control makes the difference.

Unlikely, then, but not impossible. And it may be the first time Leclerc arrives in Baku without the pressure of converting a pole.

A Ferrari that struggles over one lap

There is some irony here. Leclerc admits that qualifying is where the SF-26 suffers most this year, so losing Friday's session costs less than it would have when he ruled it. The car is more comfortable in race trim, although he concedes that McLaren has closed the gap since the summer break and that Mercedes remain the team to beat.

The title is no longer the question: Antonelli leads George Russell by 81 points heading into the Baku–Sepang–Singapore triple-header. For Ferrari, the goal now is race wins. For Leclerc, it is finally claiming one at the circuit that owes him.

On Saturday, for once, Leclerc will have no pole to defend in Baku. All he has to do is climb. At a track that has denied him so often, starting from the back may be the one scenario he hadn't tried yet.