Looking at PL3 hardly anyone would have expected to see Charles Leclerc second row in Austin. The Monegasque worked a lot in the Texan morning to fine-tune his SF21 and the results were seen in Q3, managing to get behind the other Ferrari of Carlos Sainz that had been very fast in the last free practice sessions.
A result that promises well in view of the race, especially since both McLarens are one row behind on a track that is more favorable to papaya cars on paper. Now it will be necessary to maintain clarity both at the start and in the study of an optimal strategy, trying to take advantage of any “problems” between the title contenders in front to put the wheels on the podium.
“I’m really happy. At the first corner I made a small mistake, but later it was a really nice ride – commented Leclerc – We will start fourth and fifth and try to make the most of this opportunity. We did a test in the second run of PL3, but it went very badly on my part. Surely the confidence was not that great coming in qualifying. This is why I started before Carlos, I did some laps in Q1 to find the feeling. In Q2 on average we did a really good lap because we went to the first run with the average and we recovered the two sets used in Q1 ″.
“We are not so strong on the pace to stay with those in front of us in the race. When they put it all together we struggled a bit – added the Ferrari driver – They are very far ahead, but that’s what we expected: there are no surprises. We will work, we will try to make a good start and we have what it takes to do better than our direct rival, McLaren. We expected to be less competitive than them here, better this way ”.
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