Mexico pole was ‘really big surprise’ for Leclerc

MEXICO CITY — Charles Leclerc did not think Ferrari had the performance to beat Red Bull’s Max Verstappen to the front row of the grid in Mexico and believes a good start will be crucial to convert pole position into a victory on Sunday.

Leclerc and teammate Carlos Sainz locked out the front row of the grid for the first time this year in Saturday’s qualifying session, with Verstappen less than 0.1s off pole in third place.

The Ferrari driver, who also secured pole position at the U.S. Grand Prix last weekend, said the performance only came together in the final part of qualifying after spending three practice sessions and the Q1 and Q2 sessions of qualifying off the pace.

“It’s a really big surprise but we keep saying that every time we get a pole position so people will stop believing what we say!” Leclerc said. “But I did not expect it and this time until really late in the session.

“I think in other qualifying sessions in Q1 we were on it and then we saw we had the potential for pole position, but today until Q3 we had no idea that it was inside the car.

“For some reason in Q3 I managed to put more or less everything together apart from the last sector and the lap time came straight away.

“So then I was a bit surprised, but I think it still shows us that our car is still a bit peaky and we need to work in that direction to make it better in all conditions.”

Asked if the car had the potential to surprise him in the race and allow him to challenge for victory, he added: “Well, I hope so. It’s a very difficult race, everything can happen, especially with the cooling where whichever car is behind will really need more management.

“So it can work in our favour, but for that we will need to get a good start and starting first here is always tricky to keep that position into the first corner.

“But we have had pretty good starts this year so I am confident that we can keep that first place into Turn 1 and then we will try and do our best race.”

A big part of Ferrari’s victory chances will depend on the long run down to Turn 1 and whether Leclerc and Sainz can keep Verstappen behind.

In previous years, starting from third position has offered an advantage of a slipstream on the half-mile dash from the grid to Turn 1, but Leclerc hopes the two Ferraris can work together to stay in front of the Red Bull.

“To be honest we haven’t discussed yet and we will discuss about it, but at the same time it is very difficult to predict what is going to happen,” he added. “It is basically a result of how good a start we will have and then we’ll adapt.

“Obviously, we won’t take too many risks between the cars, but apart from that it’s difficult to plan what’s happening at the start. It depends if I have a good start, if I have a bad start, so it’s difficult to plan.”