Charles Leclerc has put a Ferrari on pole in Baku four times. He has never won there. That gap between Saturday and Sunday is more or less the whole story of his Azerbaijan Grand Prix record.
Seven starts, four poles, two podiums and a best finish of second. Here is how a record this lopsided came together.
Seven visits, four poles and no win
From 2021 to 2024 Leclerc started every Azerbaijan Grand Prix from the front. Four straight poles at the same circuit is the sort of run that usually buys a driver at least one win. It bought him a fourth place, a retirement, a third and a second.
The 2022 weekend is the one that still stings. Pole again, and then the Ferrari power unit let go and left him classified 19th with nothing at all. On a track where getting to the front is supposed to be the hard part, he had already done the hard part.
2024 was the closest he has come on merit: pole, and a race-long scrap that ended with second place. Nobody on the current grid has had better track position here more often, and nobody has converted less of it.
The pattern broke in 2025, when he qualified tenth. It was his first Baku weekend since 2019 without a front-row start, and he finished ninth.
His first visit, in 2018, might still be his best drive here. He qualified 13th in a Sauber and brought it home sixth. For a rookie in the slowest car on the grid, at a circuit that turns a small mistake into a wall, that was a proper statement.
It is also the only time he has scored points in Azerbaijan in something other than a Ferrari.
Charles Leclerc's Azerbaijan GP record year by year
Every Azerbaijan Grand Prix start, with the grid slot it came from and what it was worth.
| Season | Grid | Finish | Points | Team |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | 13 | P6 | 8 | Sauber |
| 2019 | 8 | P5 | 11 | Ferrari |
| 2021 | 1 | P4 | 12 | Ferrari |
| 2022 | 1 | P19 | 0 | Ferrari |
| 2023 | 1 | P3 | 15 | Ferrari |
| 2024 | 1 | P2 | 18 | Ferrari |
| 2025 | 10 | P9 | 2 | Ferrari |
What Baku still owes him
No win, and no fastest lap either, despite more poles at this circuit than any other driver racing today. Two of those four poles turned into podiums, one into fourth, and one into a retirement.
Leclerc's Azerbaijan record is the most frustrating on the grid. Four poles at a street circuit where starting first is supposed to settle it, and a best finish of second. This is a race he should have won by now, and he knows it better than anyone.
Baku comes round again on 26 September. Leclerc takes the SF-26 to a circuit where he has more pole positions than anybody else on the grid and still no trophy, which is either a debt about to be paid or a joke the sport keeps telling at his expense.
