Charles Leclerc was satisfied with his third Formula 1 pole after a tricky Q3 at the Belgian Grand Prix.
The Monegasque, who had led the last two practice sessions before qualifying, proved untouchable as he took P1 by seven-tenths of a second from teammate Sebastian Vettel.
However, the fight for pole began with a rather silly scene on the initial out-lap as Nico Hulkenberg backed the field up who were looking to take advantage of a slipstream on the run from La Source to Les Combes.
“I asked in the garage not to bother with the slipstream [ahead of the second run] as it was a bit of a mess, so to prepare the tyres for the lap overall, and it worked out so I’m very happy,” Leclerc said.
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“It felt good. Obviously the first sector was not exactly what I wanted, especially in the first corner, we had to go very slow because there was a lot of traffic.
“I struggled quite a bit but after that the second corner we were strong and it felt amazing.”
For Vettel, second place still brought some joy after an error on his initial Q3 run despite the substantial gap to his teammate.
“In the end, it is good that we secured the first row but to fight for pole, I was sort of in the queue which didn’t help,” the German admitted.
“No excuses, we look forward to the race tomorrow, we have good pace in the car.”
Qualifying is thought to be the easy part for Ferrari with Mercedes having the better long run on Friday, but the two drivers aren’t too concerned.
“We were struggling a little bit more for the race pace yesterday so we need to work on that but looking at the pace today, I’m pretty sure we’ll be strong,” Leclerc commented.
Vettel agreed, adding: “The car was better today, so we’ll see.
“Obviously temperatures should drop overnight, but we don’t know. It’s the same for everyone.”