Charles Leclerc was delighted to produce the goods in Q3 and claim pole position in Austrian Grand Prix qualifying.
The Monegasque repeated his performance from Bahrain earlier this year and was simply immune to the pressure, improving with every lap to beat Lewis Hamilton to the top spot.
His eventual time of 1m03.003s was also a new lap record around the Red Bull Ring and having worked hard to improve his single lap pace, this was the ultimate reward.
“Obviously, I’m extremely happy, we have been competitive since FP2 but it’s always difficult to do a lap when you need to in Q3 and we did, he told Sky Sports’ Paul di Resta on the grid.
Leclerc’s time put him a quarter of a second clear of the field which at this circuit is a pretty big gap, and he explained how a small tweak gave him the advantage.
“We changed a bit the car for the first lap in Q3, I knew it’d be a compromise for the first sector but it helped for the third sector which is nice to see,” he said.
“I’m happy with the pole position but it’s a shame for Seb [Vettel] as the two cars should be closer for first and second.”
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Indeed, his teammate will start ninth after an apparent air pressure issue kept him in the garage for Q3, but for Leclerc, his focus is now achieving what he almost did in Bahrain and clinching that first F1 win.
“I think on Friday, [the long run pace] actually didn’t look bad compared to Mercedes and also Red Bull,” he said.
“We are pretty happy, we are quite competitive this weekend, the start is important with a long straight after it but usually we are pretty good on straights, so hopefully we can keep our position on the first three corners.”
