Charles Leclerc revelled in a “miracle” Q3 appearance at Formula 1’s French Grand Prix, revealing he had expected to be eliminated at the conclusion of the first knockout segment after a “disastrous” Friday.
Leclerc made it through to Q2 for the fifth successive event and stunned many by classifying 10th in Q2, ensuring he progressed through to Q3.
It marked Sauber’s first appearance in the top 10 shootout since 2015, and Leclerc went on to qualify in eighth place, after Romain Grosjean crashed and Kevin Magnussen’s laps were compromised.
The Ferrari-backed youngster expressed amazement at making it through to the final segment as he secured the best grid slot of his nascent career.
“First of all it’s already incredible to be in Q3 on a normal basis, but to be in Q3 after the Friday we had yesterday is even more incredible,” he said.
“Yesterday was a disaster. After yesterday we weren’t even expecting to get into Q2 today. The car was very difficult to drive but the team has done an incredible job.
“I stayed quite late here with the engineers trying to figure out what the issues were and what we wanted to have on the car today to do a jump in perforce, and they achieved what I asked perfectly.
“I think that’s the reason why we managed to perform so well today, but the recovery from Friday to Saturday if you look at it is quite crazy.
“I just tried to go for it because I knew that in Q3 already to be in Q3 was quite a miracle but to be more than P10 in Q3 would require us to push incredibly a lot so I just went for it.
“It didn’t work out in sectors two and three but we start P8 anyway, so it’s good.”
Leclerc nonetheless conceded that he faces a challenge to keep both Magnussen and Grosjean at bay in race trim.
“They are very quick so it’s going to be quite tricky and quite difficult to keep them behind but we’ll try our best,” he said.
“They seem stronger but both didn’t manage to do the lap in Q3 which helped us to be in front, so we’ll try to keep them behind.”
