“Is This the Driver to Lead Ferrari to a Title?”: F1 Expert Doubts Charles Leclerc’s Abilities After Baku Loss

Charles Leclerc continued his one-lap dominance in Baku by once again taking pole position. However, the Ferrari driver failed to convert the pole to a win for the fourth consecutive year. Despite having the race pace in his car this time, Leclerc couldn’t hold on to his lead and grab the win. F1 expert and former Dutch racer Jeroen Bleekemolen has pointed out how this failure doesn’t look good on the Monegasque and also doubted his championship potential.

Speaking on NOS’ Formula 1 podcast, Bleekemolen pointed out Leclerc’s poor pole-to-win conversion ratio. The #16 driver has 26 poles to date but has only won seven Grands Prix.

Even among those seven wins, all of them haven’t come from pole. “Is this a world champion? Is this the man who should lead Ferrari to a world title?”, the former Porsche Supercup winner said as quoted by F1 Maximaal.

To be fair, while Leclerc doesn’t always convert his pole to a win, Ferrari’s lack of race pace and strategic errors have also played a major role in the 26-year-old struggling to get more race wins. Nevertheless, Leclerc has also made errors to lose out on opportunities to win races.

In Baku, Leclerc did have a good start to the race to keep the lead but lost it to Piastri after the pit stop phase. It was a brilliant overtake from the Aussie to dive down the inside at turn one as the Ferrari man couldn’t defend his line. From there on, Piastri kept Leclerc at bay for over 30 laps to the chequered flag.

While he made several attempts to overtake the McLaren driver, the Monegasque did not succeed due to Piastri’s staunch defense and his tires degrading more in the MCL38’s dirty air. All in all, it was a splendid drive from Leclerc to keep pushing in an intense battle for the lead. But perhaps he could have made it better by avoiding a mistake Piastri made.

Leclerc’s missed chance to overtake Piastri

Another F1 expert and former racer Tim Hauraney explained the moment that could have swung the Azerbaijan GP back in Leclerc’s favor. It was the now-viral moment of both drivers having a snap of oversteer out of turn 16.

Hauraney stated that had the #16 driver avoided making the same mistake as the Aussie in front, he could have had a golden chance to retake the race lead. That oversteer moment led to an aesthetic drift for Piastri and Leclerc but compromised their traction at the exit of the corner.

If Leclerc had avoided that to have better traction, he could attacked Piastri more aggressively and may have had a chance to dive down the inside at turn one. The Monegasque even gasped after watching that moment during the cool-down room, perhaps in relief to not end up in the wall.