Leclerc stars with Sauber’s best F1 result since Russia 2015

Charles Leclerc secured his maiden Formula 1 points finish with an eye-catching sixth place at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix to give Alfa Romeo Sauber its best result since the 2015 Russian Grand Prix.

The F1 rookie enjoyed a trouble-free race in a frantic round in Baku to carve his way up the order before defending from two-time world champion Fernando Alonso over the final few laps having earlier overtaken the McLaren driver with a smart move at Turn 1.

Leclerc's historic sixth place sees him notch up his first F1 points while also recording the Swiss team’s best result since Felipe Nasr finished in the same position in Sochi three years ago. The Monegasque, who is a Ferrari junior driver, is eager to use the result to set up a strong rest of the season after proving the team is a genuine midfield fighter.

“It is an amazing weekend for the whole team and a good boost for the future so we need to take that and work to get better at every race,” Leclerc said. “We should enjoy the moment and then tomorrow get back to work for Barcelona.

“Our race pace is stronger than our qualifying pace at the moment and in FP2 we really saw that. Now we need to investigate that to make our low fuel pace better. If we manage to do that then we will be very competitive because our race pace at the beginning of the race was really great then at the end with low fuel we struggled a bit more. But P6 at the end is crazy.”

Leclerc is rumoured to be in with a shot for a Ferrari race seat, potentially as early as next season, and having been congratulated by the Scuderia’s technical boss Jock Clear after the race in Baku he is relishing the chance to maintain his momentum into the rest of the 2018 campaign.

“It is very important for my confidence and it is good to have one good one where we put everything together,” he said. “We obviously have been helped by the circumstances but we took our opportunity here which is great.

“I’ve had two very difficult first grand prix and then Shanghai for me was a lot more positive then in the race we were not great.

“Jock came out to say congratulations so yes it feels great and I will go to see Maurizio [Arrivabene] later. Of course I still have very close links with Ferrari so I can all see them very happy which is very good to see.”