"I didn't defend as well as I should have," admits Charles Leclerc after losing out to Oscar Piastri in Baku.

Despite claiming pole for the fourth successive year, winning in Baku proves to be as elusive as ever for the Ferrari driver, who, having lost out to Piastri on Lap 20, was never able to repass the Australian.

Shortly after they had both pitted, now running first and second after Carlos Sainz followed suit, against team advice, Piastri made a bold move on Leclerc in Turn 1.

Claiming the lead the Australian soaked up the pressure from his Monegasque rival for the remaining 31 laps of the race to claim a famous victory.

Speaking at race end, Leclerc took responsibility admitting that Piastri's move caught him off-guard.

To be honest, we lost the race where I didn't quite defend as well as I should have at the end of the straight," said the Monaco and Monza winner. "But it is the way it is," he continued. "Sometimes you do mistakes, and I'll learn from it.

"When Oscar overtook me, I was like: 'OK, now it's just a matter of staying calm, trying to keep those tyres alive and overtake him again later on'. But actually, it was a lot more difficult than that and on the straights I couldn't get as close as I wanted."

While the Ferrari appeared better in the corners, The McLaren clearly had the straight-line advantage.

"I think maybe McLaren had a little bit less downforce," said the Ferrari driver, "so on the straights they were very quick. In the corners we were a bit quicker.

"We were very competitive, and the car felt good," he insisted. "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 was really struggling to just keep those rear tyres alive, and towards the end I really thought that I would put it in the wall. It was very close."

Check out our Sunday gallery from Baku here.