Leclerc reveals near-miss with cat after misheard radio message

With Leclerc leading during a Safety Car period in Saturday’s sprint race in Baku, a radio message was broadcast to the world feed in which the Ferrari driver appeared to be reporting a ‘cut’ to his engine. 

But asked about his comment in the post-race press conference, Leclerc confirmed his message had been misheard and he had in fact been referring to a cat which had wondered onto the track.

“I said a cat, which is different!” Leclerc explained with a laugh.

“There was a cat in the middle of the road and the safety car had to stop, but I think I was probably the only one who saw that.

"But yeah, out of Turn 1 there was a cat and the Safety Car braked. It wasn't too bad, but I felt like I had to say it!”

Leclerc secured pole position for Sunday’s grand prix during Friday qualifying and once again headed the field during the new ‘Sprint Shootout’, but was powerless to prevent Red Bull’s Sergio Perez from beating him to victory on Saturday. 

Although Leclerc was delighted with Ferrari’s competitive step forward in Baku after a torrid opening three races to 2023, the Monegasque admitted the Italian team are still lacking pace compared to Red Bull. 

"I don't know much of a fight it was, but I tried my best," he said. 

"We are still lacking some pace in the race, this is definitely where our focus is at the moment. It's been the case now for quite a bit.

"So we are working on that, trying to find something for the races. In qualifying, we seem to be OK - having said that, I believe we have made a step forward.

"If you look at Australia and here, here we are better. We are not yet at the level of Red Bull so there's still a lot of work to do, but I'm a bit happier with the car.

"Once you start with the tyre degradation, that's when Checo started to go away. Max [Verstappen] started to come back. From that moment onward, we had a little bit of a disadvantage."