Leclerc surprised: 'The first lap felt better than the pole lap'

There is no telling when it comes to Ferrari. One week the Italian team is unbeatable, the following week they go like the (red) fire brigade. In the US Austin during qualifying for the US Grand Prix, the latter was the case: Charles Leclerc took pole, putting him in a great position to take his sixth win in Formula 1 on Sunday.

Looking back on qualifying, Leclerc said: "The car was very good. It's our biggest strength when we get to a weekend like this. It's a sprint weekend, FP1, and every lap counts, and it's very important to start with a strong base setup of the car and that's exactly what we did. So from the first lap, we built up confidence. I built up the confidence with the car."

Max Verstappen lost the fastest time - which would have been good for pole - and Leclerc took advantage. Being there when you need to be is what Formula 1 is all about. "I felt good straight away. So then in qualifying, I tried to put everything together. The first lap in Q3 felt quite a bit better than the second lap, but I think there was a bit of track improvement, and the second lap was good enough for pole, even though on track we got beaten by Max, which his lap time was deleted later on."

But on Wikipedia, readers only see 'Charles Leclerc, the man on pole of the 2023 US Grand Prix.' He said: "But [I'm] very happy anyway to be on pole. It's a surprise for us. We definitely did not expect to be fighting for pole position here."