Leclerc 'didn't expect Perez to come up with faster lap'

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Ferrari's Charles Leclerc will start tomorrow's Saudi Arabian Grand Prix from second place. but he was surprised and not a little disappointed to miss out on pole position to Red Bull rival Sergio Perez.

"The lap felt good honestly, I am very happy with the lap," said Leclerc, who had clinched pole for last week's season opener in Bahrain and went on to win the race.

"Qualifying was all about just keeping it on track and not doing any mistakes, which would have been very costly," he added. "Then in Q3, in the second lap I just went for it and I more or less put everything together."

Read also: Perez storms to maiden pole in Jeddah, Hamilton eliminated in Q1!

His time of 1:28.225s had given him provisional pole, finally putting him ahead of Ferrari team mate Carlos Sainz who had been fastest of anyone in Q1 and Q2.

Leclerc then had to watch and wait to see whether either of the Red Bull cars could go faster. However Max Verstappen struggled for grip and was only fourth fastest as the chequered flag came out.

Instead it was Perez who pulled off the unexpected feat, going 0.025s quicker than Leclerc to seal his first-ever maiden F1 pole position after 12 seasons in the sport.

"Congratulations to him, I'm pretty sure he did an incredible job today," conceded Leclerc. "There's a bit here and there but I definitely did not expect Checo to come with that lap time."

Leclerc will now have to see if he can find a way around Perez at the start of the race, while his team mate Sainz will be battling Verstappen from the second row ohe grid.

"It's another day tomorrow and hopefully we'll have a good start," he said.

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.