With its lengthy straights, altitude modifications, and also challenging transforms the Baku City Circuit is among the harder programs on the Formula One circuit. But for the third-straight period, Ferrari vehicle driver Charles Leclerc subjugated the Azerbaijan circuit, certifying on lead.
Thanks to a video clip shared by F1, you can see his whole certifying run, which places the challenging circuit on complete display screen.
Before diving right into the video clip, initially we require to have a look at the numerous components that make Baku a hard track to browse. As you can see from a consider the road training course, vehicle drivers need to emulate a variety of 90-degree turns at the beginning, the spins of the “castle” area as vehicle drivers encounter an altitude adjustment that leaves them not able to see the track for a short minute, and afterwards a full-blown sprint complying with the left-hand turn at Turn 16 back to the start/finish line:
In the listed below video clip you’ll see Leclerc emulate those first 90-degree turns, beginning at the eight-second mark as he goes into Turn 1. That establishes him up for a fast sprint along the appropriate side of the track prior to he goes into Turn 2, and afterwards it is one more longer straight prior to he manages the fast turns at Turn 3 and also Turn 4, with Turn 3 the area which engulfed both Nyck de Vries and also Pierre Gasly throughout certifying. You’ll see Leclerc take care of that section at the 29-second mark of the video clip.
Then it enjoys the 2nd industry, and also a few of the technological components of the circuit, as explained to me by Lando Norris previously today. The most noteworthy is the “castle” area, which begins with a limited right-hand turn at Turn 7 (which comes with the 57-second mark) prior to the following 4 transforms as vehicle drivers climb up a little bit, forgeting the track for a minute.
From there, Leclerc winds right into the 3rd industry, making the left-hand turn at Turn 16 (1:20 right into the video clip) prior to a complete dashboard back to the start/finish line on among the lengthiest full-throttle areas of the whole period.
As F1 themselves explained it, this is a virtuoso efficiency from Leclerc:
