Charles Leclerc remarked he “had a heart attack” post-qualifying in the United States amid confusion with his race engineer regarding Max Verstappen’s deleted lap time.
After struggling last time out in Qatar, Ferrari returned to form at the Circuit of the Americas and appeared as one of several teams capable of taking pole position.
Having set the benchmark pace, Leclerc improved further to 1:34.723s, which remained the best time until Max Verstappen pipped the Ferrari driver by just 0.005s.
But Verstappen’s time was then deleted for exceeding track limits at Turn 19, dropping him to sixth and returning Leclerc to top spot in qualifying for the third time in 2023.
However, Leclerc reveals that he was stunned when he initially thought his race engineer, Xavier Marcos Padros, was informing him that his time had been deleted before then clarifying it was Verstappen.
Explaining that exchange, Leclerc said: “I just had a heart attack, because my engineer told me track limits and then… for Verstappen.
“And when I heard track limits, yeah, I punched my steering wheel and my helmet, and then I heard for Verstappen and then I was ‘OK, that’s a better news for us’.
“So no, that’s why I, 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’. And that’s it.”
Leclerc is still searching for his first victory of the year, despite the Italian marque claiming the only non-Red Bull win of the season in Singapore with Carlos Sainz.
Although Verstappen will line up five places behind him on Sunday, Leclerc expects the three-time World Champion to recover the lost ground to challenge for victory.
“Oh, for sure. As always, but Red Bull is always very strong,” he answered when questioned on Verstappen remaining a threat across the remainder of the weekend.
“And obviously Max this year is always on it. So yeah, for sure he will be a threat and up there tomorrow.”
Despite improving by one-tenth to beat Lando Norris and Lewis Hamilton on his last run, Leclerc conceded that his “first lap in Q3 felt quite a bit better than the second lap.”
The Monegasque racer admits that he threw caution to the wind a bit more on his final flying lap, contributing to a few minor mistakes occurring throughout the run.
“I mean, the first one was much cleaner,” he clarified. “I put more or less everything together.
“The second lap was a bit more let’s go for it and see what happens. And when you have this kind of mentality, then you have a bit more mistakes. But all in all, I gained more by taking risks than what I’ve lost with a small mistake.
“So it was just a bit more difficult to put everything together once I started really pushing in that last lap, but it paid off. So I’m happy.”
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