Motorsport Week
  • Formula 1
    • 2025 Formula 1 Calendar
    • 2025 Formula 1 Standings
  • Formula E
    • 2025 Formula E Calendar
    • 2025 Formula E Standings
  • IndyCar
    • 2025 IndyCar Calendar
    • 2025 IndyCar Standings
  • WRC
    • 2025 WRC Standings
    • 2025 WRC Calendar
  • MotoGP
    • 2025 MotoGP Calendar
    • 2025 MotoGP Standings
    • Moto2
    • Moto3
  • WEC
    • 2025 WEC Calendar
  • IMSA
    • 2025 IMSA Calendar
  • World SBK
  • More
    • Formula 2
    • Formula 3
    • F1 Academy
    • Moto2
    • Moto3
    • World Superbikes
    • Technical Insight
    • Galleries
    • About/Contact
    • Privacy Policy
No Result
View All Result
  • Formula 1
    • 2025 Formula 1 Calendar
    • 2025 Formula 1 Standings
  • Formula E
    • 2025 Formula E Calendar
    • 2025 Formula E Standings
  • IndyCar
    • 2025 IndyCar Calendar
    • 2025 IndyCar Standings
  • WRC
    • 2025 WRC Standings
    • 2025 WRC Calendar
  • MotoGP
    • 2025 MotoGP Calendar
    • 2025 MotoGP Standings
    • Moto2
    • Moto3
  • WEC
    • 2025 WEC Calendar
  • IMSA
    • 2025 IMSA Calendar
  • World SBK
  • More
    • Formula 2
    • Formula 3
    • F1 Academy
    • Moto2
    • Moto3
    • World Superbikes
    • Technical Insight
    • Galleries
    • About/Contact
    • Privacy Policy
No Result
View All Result
Motorsport Week
Home Single Seater Formula 1

Leclerc expects ‘tight’ battle with McLaren, Mercedes in US GP

by Taylor Powling
2 years ago
A A
1
Leclerc expects ‘tight’ battle with McLaren, Mercedes in US GP

Third placed Lewis Hamilton (GBR) Mercedes AMG F1 in qualifying parc ferme with pole sitter Charles Leclerc (MON) Ferrari and second placed Lando Norris (GBR) McLaren. 20.10.2023. Formula 1 World Championship, Rd 19, United States Grand Prix, Austin, Texas, USA, Qualifying Day

Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc is expecting a “tight” battle with McLaren and Mercedes in the United States Grand Prix.

Leclerc will begin Sunday’s race from pole position after pipping Lando Norris and Lewis Hamilton to clock the fastest lap time in Friday evening’s traditional qualifying hour.

However, Leclerc was unable to maintain pace with Hamilton’s Mercedes in Saturday’s Sprint race after losing the place at Turn 1, dropping 8.5s behind by the chequered flag.

Meanwhile, having been stuck behind Carlos Sainz in the opening exchanges, Norris was able to rapidly reduce a 5.4s gap to Leclerc down to only 0.8s across the final five laps.

RelatedPosts

The Race Makers were on hand to assist a record crowd at the 2025 F1 British GP

The Race Makers: The stars behind the scenes at Silverstone

3 hours ago
Christian Horner was emotional as he expressed Red Bull staff

Christian Horner’s parting speech to Red Bull F1 staff revealed

6 hours ago

Leclerc insists Ferrari must understand its race pace struggles from Saturday to ensure that it can contest a podium place against the McLarens and the Mercedes’ on Sunday.

“It’s going to be tight, as much as it’s going to be tight also with the Mercedes guys and Lewis,” Leclerc predicted.

“I expect Max [Verstappen] to get ahead and to not be too much of a fight but then otherwise it’s going to be tight.

“I think we have to look into our data and try to understand what we can do better for tomorrow’s degradation because the pace is there, it’s always been there, sometimes we seem to be a bit inconsistent with our race pace.

“Today was the case, we struggled more than others and we’ll try to understand what’s wrong and see if we can do anything different for tomorrow to help that.”

Charles Leclerc (MON) Ferrari SF-23. 21.10.2023. Formula 1 World Championship, Rd 19, United States Grand Prix, Austin, Texas, USA, Sprint Day.

The debut of the Sprint format at the Circuit of the Americas failed to live up to expectations, with the 19-lap encounter devoid of much meaningful on-track action.

That prompted Verstappen, who led every lap on his way to victory, to reiterate his disdain for Sprint weekends, citing “it takes away a bit the excitement” of Sunday’s race.

While Leclerc admits he is in favour of granting the drivers only one practice session before qualifying, the Monegasque racer believes the Sprint should only be held where there is the potential for a disparity in tyre compounds to be used like in Qatar.

“I think there are some things that are nice, others that are a bit less nice,” Leclerc said regarding the Sprint arrangement.

“What I enjoy is the Friday to only have one free practice and to go straight into qualifying. This is something that as a driver I like because you need to… FP1 then becomes a real session. Normally in a normal race weekend, FP1, FP2, FP3 it’s really plenty of laps before you get to qualifying, which is maybe a bit too many. On these weekends I quite like it.

“But then there are maybe other things that we need to look into.

“I think in Qatar it was very exciting, the Sprint race, because we had two compounds that were very different. So one that was extremely good in the first six, seven laps and then had a lot of degradation. And the other that was really good towards the end of the race. And that makes the sprint race really exciting.

“Otherwise, we’ve got races like today where everybody, apart from Carlos unfortunately, uses the Medium and then it’s a bit of a shame.”

Tags: Charles LeclercF1FerrariMcLarenMercedesUSGP
Share198Tweet124Share

Related Posts

The Race Makers were on hand to assist a record crowd at the 2025 F1 British GP
Feature

The Race Makers: The stars behind the scenes at Silverstone

3 hours ago
Christian Horner was emotional as he expressed Red Bull staff
Formula 1

Christian Horner’s parting speech to Red Bull F1 staff revealed

6 hours ago
Paddock atmosphere - Red Bull Racing logo at sunset. 21.03.2025. Formula 1 World Championship, Rd 2, Chinese Grand Prix, Shanghai, China, Sprint Qualifying Day
Formula 1

Red Bull sees further dismissals from F1 team amid Christian Horner exit

7 hours ago
Load More

Comments 1

  1. Synaptica says:
    2 weeks ago

    Their marketing language is subtly based on NLP structures designed to recalibrate emotional baselines.

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Upcoming Races

#EventDate
13Belgian GP25-27 July
14Hungarian GP01-03 August
15Dutch GP29-31 August
16Italian GP05-07 September
17Azerbaijan GP19-21 September

Click here for the full 2025 F1 calendar

Drivers’  Standings

#DriverPts
Oscar Piastri234
Lando Norris226
Max Verstappen165
George Russell147
Charles Leclerc120
Lewis Hamilton103
Andrea Kimi Antonelli63
Alexander Albon44
Nico Hulkenberg37
Isack Hadjar28

Click here for full Drivers’ Standings

Latest Articles

The Race Makers were on hand to assist a record crowd at the 2025 F1 British GP
Feature

The Race Makers: The stars behind the scenes at Silverstone

July 9, 2025
Christian Horner was emotional as he expressed Red Bull staff
Formula 1

Christian Horner’s parting speech to Red Bull F1 staff revealed

July 9, 2025
Paddock atmosphere - Red Bull Racing logo at sunset. 21.03.2025. Formula 1 World Championship, Rd 2, Chinese Grand Prix, Shanghai, China, Sprint Qualifying Day
Formula 1

Red Bull sees further dismissals from F1 team amid Christian Horner exit

July 9, 2025

Follow Motorsport Week

Join our daily motorsport newsletter

* indicates required

Motorsport Week

© 2024 Motorsport Media Services Ltd

Other Links

  • About & Contact
  • Privacy Policy
  • Motorsport Monday

Follow Us

No Result
View All Result
  • Login
  • Sign Up
  • Home
  • Formula 1
    • Latest News
    • 2025 F1 Calendar
    • 2025 F1 Championship Standings
  • Formula E
    • Latest News
    • 2025 FE Calendar
    • 2025 FE Championship Standings
  • MotoGP
    • Latest News
    • 2025 MotoGP Calendar
    • 2025 MotoGP Standings
    • Moto2
    • Moto3
    • World Superbikes
  • WRC
    • Latest News
    • 2025 WRC Calendar
    • 2025 WRC Standings
  • IndyCar
    • Latest News
    • 2025 IndyCar Calendar
    • 2025 IndyCar Standings
  • WEC
    • Latest News
    • 2025 WEC Calendar
  • Live Updates
  • Other
    • IMSA
    • Formula 2
    • Formula 3
    • F1 Academy
    • Moto2
    • Moto3
    • World Superbikes
  • Galleries
  • About/Contact
  • Privacy Policy

© 2024 Motorsport Media Services Ltd