Prime Tire Newsletter | This is The Athletic's twice-weekly F1 newsletter. Sign up here to receive Prime Tire directly in your inbox on Tuesday and Friday.

Welcome back to Prime Tire, where today, I'm looking forward to what is always an exciting Formula One race in Baku.

The track's long main straight lets the cars reach super high speeds, while the close walls mean a crash is rarely far away, in what is usually a thrilling combination. Oscar Piastri's win here last year -- diving by Charles Leclerc and then holding the Ferrari off with ice-cold defense -- emphasized again how this place usually rewards the best drivers.

But it's the vanquished 2024 runner-up we're thinking about in today's PT, thanks to a hot Leclerc statistics streak.

There's a very high chance you'll hear or read that this weekend, if you haven't already, with F1 hitting the streets for a ninth time in the Azerbaijan capital. And this is because one driver on the current grid has registered an impressive, if agonizing, record around here during those nine years back to 2016. And he didn't even make his F1 debut until two years later.

Leclerc is actually yet to win anything at all here in F1. And this is despite a sensational record in qualifying -- even in 2021 when Ferrari had a big engine power deficit to its main rivals.

His current streak since that year stands at four successive pole positions -- a record that extends to five qualifying sessions topped in Baku, when taking into account how he was fastest in what was then the "sprint shootout" that set the grid for the shorter race here in 2023.

And had he not crashed and launched a thousand "I am stupid" memes in 2019 qualifying, Leclerc might have another Baku pole to add to this long list.

Leclerc's ability to find time in the tiny moments when overlapping throttle use with braking -- a way to keep the rear end of his car in shape through the many 90-degree corners in Baku -- is what makes him so devastating here.

But something has always thwarted him in the races. Pérez used the fabulous RB19 to nick the 2023 sprint race, which was probably Leclerc's best chance of some Baku success, after an engine failure had cost him in the 2022 GP.

He then looked likely to win the 2024 Azerbaijan GP, as he raced off into the distance early on. But Piastri clawed him back, had one chance to pass and took it with aplomb.

Going further back in Leclerc's career, he was electric in Baku on what was a devastating Formula Two weekend for him personally in 2017.

Just three days before he won the feature race in commanding fashion (below), his father Hervé had sadly succumbed to cancer. The next day, then 19 years old, Leclerc again impressively set that tragedy aside and won the F2 sprint race on the road (he was later demoted to second for a minor yellow-flag infraction). Resilience personified.

Leclerc's F1 efforts in Baku put him jointly into a very specific piece of F1 history.

Since his defeat last year, Leclerc has been tied with the legendary Jim Clark for the most poles at a single track without winning there. Clark, the double world champion, topped qualifying at Monaco four times, but never won at what is Leclerc's home track.

Behind them in this tiny chunk of the hefty F1 record book are four drivers who took three poles at one race but never won. René Arnoux and Nelson Piquet at the Austrian GP, Graham Hill in Belgium, and Rubens Barrichello at his home race in Brazil.

Leclerc has also been on pole twice in Singapore and Mexico City, but is yet to win at either venue. This all feeds into his record of 27 poles but only eight wins overall, which is occasionally (incorrectly) used to criticize the Monegasque.

Really, it just highlights just how rapid he is. But that Ferrari has never been able to provide the right package to put him in title contention is behind all those near misses.

And with Ferrari failing to kick on in that regard in 2025, after looking so good late in 2024, there has been plenty of chat lately about how committed Leclerc can be to the Scuderia's current project.

Well, he addressed that pretty emphatically in Baku on Thursday, when asked what is stopping him moving elsewhere (other than the long-term contract he signed with Ferrari in early 2024).

"Because I love this team very much, that's the answer," Leclerc said. "I've always loved Ferrari and that's where I draw my motivation from because I want to bring Ferrari back to the top. No matter how long it takes."

For all that Leclerc seems to have turned a corner lately with what was a tricky Ferrari car to qualify early in 2025, even if he somehow extends his Baku qualifying streak tomorrow the mighty McLarens and the resurgent Max Verstappen will still be favorites for Sunday's race.

Their cars are just so well suited to this layout, with lots of low- and medium-speed corners, plus that long main straight.

Now, over to Luke to hear from an early off-track defeat from Leclerc in Baku -- one that can only have brought positive emotions, for a change here.

Leclerc was very apologetic when greeting me for our interview on Thursday for an upcoming feature on The Athletic. He was late, but with good reason: he'd been playing quite the chess match.

Chess has become one of those hobbies that has really taken hold in the paddock for the drivers in recent years, along with padel and golf.

Leclerc and his former Ferrari teammate Carlos Sainz were two early regular chess rivals, but for Leclerc that continued with Lewis Hamilton's arrival at the Scuderia for 2025.

Hamilton and Leclerc started an ongoing contest against each other on their phones at the beginning of the year. But on Thursday, they got the chance to really test their skills against a chess grandmaster, Teimour Radjabov, who comes from Azerbaijan.

You can see the video from Ferrari and the Baku City Circuit here.

"It was always going to be pretty difficult," Leclerc told me of their match. I tried putting a positive spin on it: did he at least equip himself well against such a renowned and successful player?

"No," Leclerc said. "He basically played with me, and when he wanted to win the game, he did!"

Here are the main takeaways from today's on-track action in Azerbaijan:

Final practice in Baku takes place at 4:30 a.m. ET and 9:30 a.m. UK on Saturday, with qualifying to follow at 8 a.m. ET and 1 p.m. UK. Follow it all with us.

🐻 Haas driver Ollie Bearman fronted up to his controversial penalty late in the Italian GP, which has brought him to the brink of a race ban. Bearman called the penalty "a tough one to take" as "that's not how any of us have grown up racing."

‼️ Laura Villars, a 28-year-old Swiss racing driver, unexpectedly (but at the time of writing, not formally, as uncovered in Madeline Coleman's reporting) declared her intention to enter December's FIA presidential election against Mohammed Ben Sulayem and Tim Mayer.

📝 Luke explained why George Russell still hasn't signed a new contract with Mercedes. Russell is also battling what sounds like a nasty illness so far in Baku.

🏆And I outlined exactly how McLaren can clinch the 2025 constructors' this weekend, with the team firmly in control of its own destiny for this achievement. If it wins 1-2, or even 1-3, the title is heading back to its Woking factory.

Why Leclerc is so good in Baku. Plus, Ferrari leads the early action in Azerbaijan