Charles Leclerc has taken pole position at the Baku City Circuit four years in a row, from 2021 to 2024. He has never won there. On Saturday he is set to start from the very back of the grid.
Ferrari plans to fit Leclerc with a fresh power unit after Thursday practice, replacing the engine damaged when he crashed on lap two of the Italian Grand Prix at Monza on 6 September. Team principal Fred Vasseur made no secret of where the penalty was likely to fall.
“We’ll see when we have to take an engine penalty with Charles, but I think Baku should be quite suitable,” Vasseur told Canal+.
Antonelli won Monza from 19th
The case for a Leclerc win, made this week by Motor Sport Magazine’s Mark Hughes, rests on a single feature of the circuit: the run to Turn 1. Baku has one of the longest full-throttle stretches on the calendar, overtaking down it is realistic, and safety cars are frequent on a street layout where the walls do not forgive.
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The template arrived at the same Monza weekend. Kimi Antonelli took a grid penalty of his own and stormed from 19th to win the race. If a rookie could win from that far back at a low-degradation track, the reasoning goes, Baku’s chaos widens the door for Leclerc.
He is not selling the same optimism.
“Baku is a track I really like and one that has given me plenty of satisfaction in qualifying, but this time it will be more complicated,” Leclerc told reporters.
Poles that never became wins
None of Leclerc’s four Baku poles has turned into a race victory. His best result at the venue is second place in 2024. Motor Sport Magazine also recalls a 2019 pole bid ending in a Q2 crash at Turn 8, and a 2025 attempt ending with a shunt at Turn 15.
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The 2026 weekend is running on an unusual calendar. This is the first Azerbaijan Grand Prix to be held on a Saturday, moved forward to avoid Azerbaijan Remembrance Day on 27 September, a national day of mourning for military personnel killed in the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war.
Leclerc fifth, 112 points behind
Leclerc goes into the weekend fifth in the drivers’ standings on 155 points, 112 behind championship leader Kimi Antonelli. Team-mate Lewis Hamilton is third on 191. On paper both Ferrari drivers are mathematically alive; realistically, neither is in contention.
That takes some of the risk out of the engine call. If the gamble misfires, Ferrari lose grid slots they could not reasonably expect to convert.
Qualifying runs on Friday from 4pm local time. Race start is 3pm local on Saturday over 51 laps.
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