Charles Leclerc joked in Austin that he had a “heart attack” during his cool down lap after qualifying following a confusing radio message from his Ferrari race engineer regarding track limits.
Leclerc claimed pole for Sunday’s US Grand Prix after a thrilling finale in Q3 between himself and Max Verstappen.
In the dying seconds of the session, after Leclerc had concluded his final run, the Red Bull driver sprung to the top of the timesheet with a hot lap that beat the Scuderia charger’s best effort by just 0.005s.
“For f***s sake, for f***s sake,” raged Leclerc on the radio in reaction to his rival’s performance.
However, the Dutchman’s pole lap was immediately deleted for a track limits infringement.
But when Ferrari race engineer Xavier Marcos Padros informed Leclerc of Verstappen’s fate, the Monegasque initially understood that it was his time that had been deleted.
“I just had a heart attack because my engineer told me ‘track limits’ and then ‘for Verstappen,'” Leclerc explained.
“When I heard ‘track limits’ I punched the steering wheel and my helmet and then I heard ‘for Verstappen’ and then I was ‘okay, that’s better news for us’.
“So that’s why in the moment I just said to Xavi please tell me the name before the ‘track limits’ just so I don’t get too excited.”
©Ferrari
While delighted with his third pole position of 2023, Leclerc made clear that Verstappen – who will launch his race on Sunday from sixth on the grid – remains a force to be reckoned with.
“For sure, as always,” he said. “But Red Bull is always very strong and obviously Max this year is always on it. So, for sure he will be a threat and up there.”
After a period during which his Scuderia teammate Carlos Sainz appeared to have gained an upper hand, Leclerc says his confidence was boosted by the upgrade introduced by Ferrari in Japan last month.
“All in all, it’s exactly what I’ve been complaining since the beginning of the season, where we have a car that is very inconsistent,” he explained. “Once we get over oversteer, we lose a lot of overall grip.
“This upgrade was exactly for that and that helped me to gain a bit more confidence and to set up the car in a way that I prefer and to have a bit of a stronger front, which normally is something that I enjoy. So I just feel more at ease with the car since then.
“But there are still quite a few races left and there’s still quite a lot of work to do. So we need to keep pushing, but we did some steps forward for sure.”
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