It risked being a Saturday to forget that of Austin for Charles Leclerc. The Monegasque, in fact, struggled a lot during the FP3 in taming a rear end of his Ferrari that suddenly became a dancer.
The difficulties experienced in the last free practice session, however, suddenly disappeared in qualifying. The Monegasque, once back on track, returned to having an optimal feeling with the SF21 and was able to express himself again at his levels by conquering a fourth time trial that seemed impossible to grab on the eve.
Leclerc convinced on the flying lap with medium tires, and with this compound he will start the race tomorrow. At the end of the session, to the microphones of Sky Sport F1 HD, Charles expressed all his satisfaction for a fourth time trial that tastes like a miracle.
“I’m really happy. I made a small mistake in turn 1, but then I made a nice lap. I’m really happy. Tomorrow we will start one in front of the other and we will have to take advantage of this opportunity ”.
Charles Leclerc, Ferrari SF21
Photo by: Glenn Dunbar / Motorsport Images
Leclerc then explained what happened in FP3 and what, instead, happened in the afternoon when his car returned to send positive feedback.
“In the second run of FP3 we did a test that went very badly. I didn’t have faith. When I got to qualifying I went to the track before Carlos to get familiar with the car and the feeling returned immediately ”.
“In Q1 I didn’t push, while in Q2 we did a good job with the medium tires. I am very happy with what has been done today ”.
Worrying the elusive Red Bull and Mercedes in qualifying was something unthinkable, but also placing both cars ahead of the McLarens was not so obvious. Charles admitted he was surprised to have preceded the cars of Norris and Ricciardo despite the advantage being a handful of tenths.
“Even today when Mercedes and Red Bull managed to put everything together they were ahead of us, but that’s what we expected. We thought we were behind McLaren on this track. It’s better that way. We will try to make a good start and then we will try to stay ahead of them ”.
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