Leclerc admits he didn’t defend hard enough when Piastri attacked for the lead · RaceFans

Charles Leclerc admitted he made it too easy for Oscar Piastri when the McLaren driver passed him for the lead of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.

Piastri’s move on the pole-winner put him on course to score his second victory of the season.

The McLaren driver sprang a surprise attack on Leclerc on the 20th lap of the race. Piastri dived down the inside of Leclerc at turn one and kept the lead for the remaining 31 laps.

In spite of his disappointment at losing the race, Leclerc admitted he enjoyed his scrap with Piastri, whom he spent many laps trying to re-pass.

“It is enjoyable because you’ve got many opportunities every lap,” he said. “I think maybe McLaren had a little bit less downforce, so in the straights they were very quick, in the corners we were a bit quicker.

“At the end I thought, when Oscar overtook me, ‘okay now it’s just a matter of staying calm, trying to keep those tyres and overtake him again later on’. But actually it was a lot more difficult than that. In the straights I couldn’t get as close as I wanted.

“To be honest, we lost the race where I didn’t quite defend as well as I should have at the end of the straights. But it is the way it is. Sometimes you do mistakes and I’ll learn from it.”

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Leclerc pulled away from Piastri in the first stint of the race while both were on the medium tyre compound. However once they switched to hard rubber Piastri was able to gain on him. Leclerc felt he was disadvantage by the time he lost due to a technical problem with his car during second practice on Friday.

“On the medium we were very competitive and the car felt good,” said Leclerc. “Unfortunately, we didn’t do any high-fuel running on my side in FP1, FP2 and we went for a set-up direction that maybe in the race was a bit more difficult to manage, especially on the hard tyres.

“I really thought that in one corner or two I thought that I was going to hit the wall. It was very close. But second today, McLaren and Oscar have done an exceptional job and they did better than us.”

Leclerc’s team mate Carlos Sainz Jnr almost joined him on the podium, but retired in a collision with Sergio Perez on the penultimate lap.

“It’s obviously a huge shame for Carlos in the last lap, but hopefully everybody is okay,” said Leclerc. “Obviously not a great day for the team.”