Charles Leclerc admits he isn’t too interested in the stats having claimed his fourth straight pole at the Russian Grand Prix.
The Monegasque became the first Ferrari driver since Michael Schumacher in 2001 to take a quadruple of consecutive P1’s in qualifying, moving his tally for the season upto six.
This after an imperious performance in Sochi which left his rivals with no chance as he improved on both laps in Q3.
“It feels good but it doesn’t change my approach from the other weekends,” Leclerc said post-session via Crash.net.
“Every time you go into a session you just take it normally without thinking about the others or the last poles I have.
“Obviously it feels great but I don’t want to think about these things and I just want to focus on the job ahead.
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“Of course I feel confident going in qualifying but at some point, it [the run] is going to end, so whether it’s now or later I don’t know,” he added.
“The only thing I’m trying to do is to focus on myself, do exactly the same procedure as I had since the last four races.
“I definitely don’t go to the car thinking it will be easy and come together alone. I just try to keep working as I did in the last races and hopefully the lap time comes.”
“I don’t think I had any clean laps before the one of Q3,” he said. “I think the first lap in Q3 felt very good, the second lap very good until Turn 16, where I lost the rear and lost a little bit of lap time.
“But overall the car was just coming together and the balance was getting better. I was adjusting a bit the aero balance and I felt more and more confident.”
Leclerc though is well aware he faces a tough task to hold off Lewis Hamilton on the long run to Turn 2 at the start on Sunday.
“It definitely feels great to be back on pole, but I don’t know if it’s the best track to be starting on pole,” he suggested.
“The straight is very long after the start and tomorrow the start will be very important, as always, but here, it will be even more, because of the straight.”