Leclerc expects "some surprises" as he reveals how McLaren hid its performance
Despite Ferrari's impressive form on the opening day at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, Charles Leclerc expects McLaren to bounce back in the remainder of the weekend, with the Monegasque going as far as to indicate that the papaya team deliberately held back their real competitiveness by abandoning some of their encouraging flying laps.
Having clipped the wall in the opening practice session at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton looked to display an impressive performance in the second one-hour session. The Briton ran the mediums in the opening stages of the session, and ended second quickest after the first runs.
Although the seven-time world champion looked to struggle a bit when he switched to the red-walled C6 compound, he got his act together on his third flying lap on the softest compound, posting a time of 1m 41.293s to end up quickest on Friday.
His team-mate Charles Leclerc led the way after the first half an hour of running at Baku, and took second behind his team-mate after everyone completed the qualifying simulation runs.
The Monegasque ran a less-loaded rear wing configuration compared to Hamilton, and endured a few moments across the session, with the rear end of his SF-25 having been quite loose due to the low-downforce rear wing.
Reflecting on his performance on the opening day at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, Hamilton was left to praise the brakes on his Ferrari SF-25 - an area in which he has struggled since the start of the season.
Reflecting on his day at Baku, Leclerc commented: "I think there’s more potential this weekend. I did a solid job today, but I want to extract more.
"Our competitors seem to be very strong and I expect to see some surprises in qualifying tomorrow, but anything can happen on this track, so we will see what’s on the cards. We’ll fight for a good starting position tomorrow."
Pushed on to reveal what he expects from the remainder of the weekend, Leclerc indicated that McLaren drivers Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri deliberately held back their real competitiveness by abandoning some of their encouraging flying laps.
"(Today) was okay. I think there's a lot more potential, especially coming from me. I didn't do a great job today, but overall, we seem to be pretty strong, so it's good.
"But, and there's a big but, it looks like McLaren is in another world, literally, and I think people will be very surprised tomorrow because Lando didn't finish some laps that were very, very impressive."
