Lifting the curse of Sunday
While Sergio Perez can rightly claim to be the Sunday King of Baku, today Charles Leclerc once again confirmed he is the undisputed Saturday Prince. Since 2021, no one has managed to outpace the Monegasque over a qualifying lap on the track in the capital city of Azerbaijan. In fact, in that first year, he did it in a Ferrari that was not exactly the best of the bunch. If this isn't proof enough of his Baku brilliance then consider that he'd already secured the Formula 2 pole position here in 2017, while last year he was also quickest in the Sprint Shootout. He clearly has an incredible feel for this track. Since he has raced here, only twice has he missed out on pole: in 2018 when he was 13th in the Sauber and in 2019, eighth for Ferrari.
However, to date, Sunday in Azerbaijan has not gone so well for Charles. He won the F2 Feature Race in 2017 but since then he has drawn a blank, only making it to the podium once, when he finished third last year. Fourth place in 2021 was about the best he could expect when his Ferrari was not that competitive, but that was as nothing compared to the disappointment of 2022. The F1-75 had proved to be very quick in the early part of the season, although reliability was its Achilles Heel. On the Saturday, Charles had beaten Perez by almost three tenths and Verstappen by 347 thousandths, but on Sunday, the Maranello power unit went up in smoke on lap 19 and Charles limped back to the pits to retire.
This year, one would think everything points to a different outcome. The SF-24 has proved to be pretty reliable and unlike its predecessor, the SF-23, it has performed better in the races than in qualifying, as was seen for example in the two races immediately after the summer break when Leclerc was a convincing third in Zandvoort before securing that brilliant win in Monza. On top of that, the team of the moment, McLaren, only has second placed Oscar Piastri at the front end of the grid, sharing the front row with Leclerc. The Australian is the meat in a Ferrari sandwich as Carlos Sainz is in third place and the Ferrari pair could play a team game to scupper Piastri's chances in a high speed game of chess. That won't be the only game in town, as Mercedes and Red Bull will want to have their say, at least from what could be read into the second free practice session, the only one where long runs were possible. One unknown factor could be the behaviour of the Hard tyre as, so far, only Mercedes and Alpine have done any laps with it. But consider that Leclerc built his Monza win on his ability to manage the C3 tyre, so he looks to have his ducks in a row on this front too.
Therefore, everything seems to be in place for Charles to break his Baku jinx. He finally got the Monaco monkey off his back this year, so why not repeat that here on the shores of the Caspian Sea?
