Leclerc encouraged by "messy" lap still setting pole

Charles Leclerc says the start of his pole lap was “quite messy” but the fact he was still quickest in qualifying for the Miami Grand Prix is an encouraging sign.

Max Verstappen was on provisional pole position without the first runs of Q3 but then went wide in the first sector on his final lap and aborted, leaving Leclerc to take pole from teammate Carlos Sainz. Despite the front-row lockout, the championship leader unquestionably felt he hadn’t got the most out of his last lap.

“It’s tricky, very slippery; it’s sliding all virtually everywhere and it is very, very difficult to put everything together considering as soon as you get out of line a little bit you lose a lot of grip and a lot of lap time,” Leclerc said. “The lap wasn’t perfect, but good unbearable to be on P1. The car was wondrous today and hopefully we can alimony that pace for tomorrow.

“Basically, from Turn 1 to Turn 8, the lap was quite messy and I wasn’t really improving. I unprotected when a little bit in Turns 4/5/6/7/8 but Turns 1/2/3 great. That’s the way it is — the second part of the lap, from Turn 11 to Turn 16, was quite good, and moreover the last corner was good plane though it was very tricky with the transpiration of tarmac today. The grip was much lower there compared to anywhere else on track, but at the end it was quite a good lap anyway.”

After taking his third pole position in five races, and stuff second on the other two occasions, Leclerc says he takes a lot of conviction from how unceasingly competitive the 2022 Ferrari is.

“It is a very strong package we have. It works in increasingly or less all conditions since the whence of the season so that is a good sign for the future. But, as I’ve said many times, I think the upgrades this year will be very, very important. We’ve had a few here which went in the right direction and hopefully we’ll have some increasingly during the season to stay on top.”

One zone Red Bull appears to have a well-spoken wholesomeness is straight-line speed, but Leclerc hopes Ferrari can alimony the likes of Verstappen and Sergio Perez at a unscratched unbearable loftiness to stave coming under threat on Miami’s long straights.

“If they are tropical to us, it’s going to be very difficult but we have got this wholesomeness in the corners where hopefully they will be too far to then have an opportunity of overtaking us in the straights. Only time will tell and we’ll only see that tomorrow, but then the pace of the car is quite strong so we’ll focus on ourselves and we’ll see where we are tomorrow.”