Charles Leclerc fails to convert pole position to victory in Baku, Formula 1 records, history books, statistics, research and developments, upgrades #adessonews

Another Charles Leclerc pole, another Charles Leclerc defeat.

You can pretty much set your watch to them.

The Azerbaijan Grand Prix was Leclerc’s 26th pole position. Oscar Piastri’s win ensured that Leclerc failed to convert for a 21st time.

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It’s left him with an abysmal 19.23 conversion rate — one of the worst strike rates in Formula 1 history and comfortably the worst of any driver to have taken 20 or more pole positions. It’s by far the lowest rate among the grid’s other winners.

It’s an alarming statistic for both Leclerc and his Ferrari team, and loss in Azerbaijan would have been felt particularly keenly.

It was Leclerc’s fourth consecutive pole in Baku, a track he’s developed an affinity for. The risk-taking required on the always-slippery public roads has inevitably put him a step ahead of the field, even in years when his car has had no real business competing at the front.

Over 51 laps his personal advantage has inevitably been overcome by superior car packages. His second-place finish on Sunday was only his second podium in Azerbaijan.

But unlike previous years at this circuit, this season he did have the pace to compete for victory.

“I think today we’ve lost the race based on two misjudgements,” Leclerc said on Sunday. “The fact of not fighting Oscar more was a mistake from my side because then with the different [car set-ups] we were struggling to actually overtake back in the straight.

“When Oscar overtook me into turn 1 I was not too worried. I just wanted to stay within the DRS, keep my tyres and attempt an overtake later on. However, this opportunity never really arose again, just because we were too slow in the straights.

“That was a small misjudgment which had a big consequence.

“The second one is exactly this: we expected the undercut today to be a very difficult thing to do, just because we thought that the warm-up on the hard would be extremely difficult for some reason.

“We’ve got to look into how the gap went from 6 seconds to 1.5 seconds, because that is definitely not what we expected — and that is a lot.

“Even on a track where undercuts are big, it’s still 4.5 seconds or 4 seconds — a lot of lap time loss. I don’t exactly know why and where we’ve lost this lap time, so this will be an analysis.”

PIT TALK PODCAST: Oscar Piastri has won his second grand prix with a gutsy pass and centimetre-perfect defensive drive to fend off pole-getter Charles Leclerc in a Baku classic.

Team boss Frédéric Vasseur said the strategy was slightly amiss in retrospect, noting that a technical problem on Leclerc’s car in FP2 had cost him the chance to conduct a race simulation that might have showed up the mistake before it was made.

“The pace was there,” he said. “I think we probably missed out the last lap before the pit stop, the first lap after the pit stop and we missed the race at this stage.

“We have to learn from this and do a better job next time. The lack of long stint before the weekend probably didn’t help Charles at this stage.

“For sure we have a bit of frustration because we had the space and pace to win this weekend.”

Whatever the case, it doomed Leclerc to another historically predictable loss from pole.

THE HISTORICAL CONTEXT

Leclerc’s 19.23 per cent pole-to-victory conversion rate is the worst of any driver with 20 or more poles.

Adding insult to injury is that no driver in Formula 1 history has claimed more pole positions without winning a world championship — the next-closest driver is Valtteri Bottas, who had eight poles to his name.

Pole-to-victory conversion by percentage — drivers with 20 or more poles

1. Max Verstappen: (32 conversions from 40 poles) 80.00 per cent

2. Fernando Alonso: (14 from 22) 63.64 per cent

3. Michael Schumacher: (40 from 68) 58.82 per cent

4. Lewis Hamilton: (61 from 104) 58.65 per cent

5. Alain Prost: (18 from 33) 54.55 per cent

6. Sebastian Vettel: (31 from 57) 54.39 per cent

7. Nigel Mansell: (17 from 32) 53.13 per cent

8. Juan Manuel Fangio: (15 from 29) 51.72 per cent

9. Nico Rosberg: (15 from 30) 50.00 per cent

10. Jim Clark: (15 from 33) 45.45 per cent

11. Ayrton Senna: (29 from 65) 44.62 per cent

12. Mika Häkkinen: (10 from 26) 38.46 per cent

13. Niki Lauda: (9 from 24) 37.50 per cent

14. Damon Hill: (7 from 20) 35.00 per cent

15. Valtteri Bottas: (6 from 20) 30.00 per cent

16. Nelson Piquet: (5 from 24) 20.83 per cent

17. Charles Leclerc: (5 from 26) 19.23 per cent

In the total historical context Leclerc’s pole-to-victory rate is the fifth-worst of all time among drivers with at least one pole and one victory.

Only Ralf Schumacher (16.67 per cent), Jean-Pierre Jabouille (16.67 per cent), David Coulthard (16.67 per cent) and René Arnoux (11.11 per cent) have worse records.

Incredibly he’s also in the bottom half of pole-getters on the current grid. Carlos Sainz, Daniel Ricciardo and Lando Norris all have better strike rates despite scoring relatively few poles. Behind him are only those drivers with one-off poles and no victories.

Pole-to-victory conversion by percentage — other active drivers

Carlos Sainz: (2 from 5): 40.00 per cent

Daniel Ricciardo: (1 from 3): 33.33 per cent

Lando Norris: (1 from 5): 20.00 per cent

Lance Stroll: (0 from 1): 0 per cent

Kevin Magnussen: (0 from 1): 0 per cent

Nico Hulkenberg: (0 from 1): 0 per cent

LECLERC’S RECORD OF WOE

F1’s fastest man on Saturday is almost totally luckless on Sunday.

Of his 21 failures to convert, 11 came because his Ferrari was no match for the winner on race day, five were down to team or strategy errors and three were due to technical retirements. Only one was thanks to pure driver error.

Defeat in Azerbaijan was arguably a combination of team and driver error, though it’s also fair to say Ferrari didn’t have a fast enough car considering its weakness in a straight line.

It’s perhaps his most complex failure to convert yet — which is saying something considering the growing list of missed victories polluting his racing record.

Leclerc fans, look away now.

Season 2019

Leclerc’s breakout 2019 season was lucrative, with the new Ferrari driver taking seven poles, the most of any driver that year.

It was also his introduction to what would be a long series of disappointments.

In Bahrain (1) he turned pole to third after an engine problem eliminated what had been a comfortable lead.

In Austria (2) has was beaten by Verstappen late in the race — and after a long stewards investigation — after being bumped off the road at the top of the hill.

He finally broke though in Belgium (3), holding off Lewis Hamilton for his maiden victory.

He did likewise to the delight of Ferrari’s home fans in Monza (4) at the following race.

But in Singapore (5) his bad luck returned. He ended up second to teammate Sebastian Vettel after being stopped second despite having held the lead.

In Russia (6) he was caught out by a virtual safety car after a team orders debacle at the start of the race.

In Mexico (7) a slow pit stop dropped him 15 seconds off the lead; he recovered to six seconds adrift but fourth on the road.

Season 2021

The 2020 season was one of the worst in Ferrari’s history, but by 2021 Leclerc was in a position to flex his one-lap muscle again.

He took pole for his home race in Monaco (8) and promptly crashed in Q3. Though the car was repaired, a cracked rear-left drive shaft hub and gone undetected, forcing him to retire before even starting the race.

Pole in Azerbaijan (9) — his first of four in succession — turned into fourth, his Ferrari simply not quick enough to cling to victory.

Season 2022

Ferrari set its sights on a title challenge in 2022. things certainly started well, with Leclerc converting poles in Bahrain (10) and Australia (11) into victories, dominantly so in Melbourne.

But in Miami (12) he was defeated from pole by Verstappen, and things really went downhill from there.

In Spain (13) he retired from an easy lead with engine problems.

In Monaco (14) a catastrophic series of pit stop blunders dropped him to fourth.

In Azerbaijan (15) he retired with engine problems while in podium contention.

In France (16) he crashed out of the lead while being chased hard by Verstappen.

In Italy (17) Ferrari lacked the pace to convert a popular pole to victory despite an ambitious strategy.

In Singapore (18) he was beaten from the line by Sergio Pérez and couldn’t retake the lead.

Leclerc had doubled his pole count but added only two more victories to his CV.

Season 2023

Last season the story was much the same.

In Azerbaijan (19) and Belgium (20) he finished third without the pace to win.

In the USA (21) he lost out via a one-stop strategy and was disqualified after the race.

In Mexico (22) his car was again too slow, leaving him third.

Only Las Vegas (23) truly got away from him, this time thanks to a badly timed safety car.

Season 2024

So far this year he’s converted one pole — famously his first home victory in Monaco (24).

In Belgium (25) his car didn’t have the pace to win, leaving him third.

Now in Azerbaijan (26) a chance at victory was taken from him by an incisive Oscar Piastri.

WHAT HOPE FOR MORE WINS THIS SEASON?

Clearly the vast majority of Leclerc’s non-winning poles were down to factors outside his control, either a slow car or poor strategy. His record shouldn’t be wielded in judgement against him.

But the reverse side of that coin is what makes losses like Azerbaijan hurt so badly: this time the opportunity was there for the taking.

Ferrari hasn’t been in victory contention for much of this season. The year started strongly, with regular podiums, a pinched victory in Australia after Verstappen retired with brake problems and Leclerc’s long-awaited home win in Monaco, but the middle of the campaign has been arduous as upgrades failed to hit the mark.

A new floor applied at the Spanish Grand Prix brought back the dreaded bouncing, which in turn forced the team to either run with a higher ride height or simply take downforce off the car. The European season comprises traditional circuits requiring medium to high level of downforce, making these compromises untenable.

New upgrades brought on either side of the mid-season break were supposed to have fixed the worst of the team’s problems, and sure enough Leclerc won in Italy and was in a position to win in Azerbaijan, following fortunate but hard-earned podiums in Belgium and the Netherlands.

“It’s been a pretty good last couple of races in terms of performance,” Leclerc said. “Within the team we are in a good position, in a good mood, and we need to keep pushing in that direction.”

But neither Monza nor Baku demanded the sort of levels of downforce that would really test Ferrari’s solution, with neither comprising the sorts of testing sweeps of, say Barcelona or Silverstone.

Further, street tracks have been Ferrari’s domain all season. Its car is compliant over the bumps and has terrific acceleration out of slow turns, giving it an inherent advantage. Much of those strengths also applied at the chicane-dominated Monza.

“I think [we can compete at] Baku, Monza and probably Singapore as well,” Leclerc said. “These three races have very specific characteristics for cars.

“We’ve got to wait maybe for Austin that will be a bit more of a normal track again to understand whether we’ve done the steps forward we expected.”

It adds significance to Ferrari’s performance this weekend in Marina Bay.

“In these last two races, plus Singapore, we need to maximise the points and take opportunities if we have opportunity to actually win races,” Leclerc said. “Today I felt like we’ve missed that opportunity.”

He might have only one more chance before Las Vegas, right at the end of the season, to compete for poles and victories and maybe — maybe — begin to level his poles-wins ledger.

It puts a lot on the line for this weekend’s Singapore Grand Prix.