Scuderia Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc will start at the head of the field in the Australian Grand Prix tomorrow (although for the moment he is under investigation over a qualifying incident) which takes place at Melbourne’s Albert Park circuit. This is the Monegasque driver’s eleventh pole, which puts him sixth equal on the list of Prancing Horse drivers, with Jacky Ickx and Rubens Barrichello. For the Maranello team it is pole number 232, its seventh in Australia, the sixth in Albert Park. In contrast to Charles’ brilliant performance, Carlos was out of luck today and will start from ninth spot after red flags wiped out what looked like being one of the best lap times of the day on his first run in the last stages of qualifying. The Spanish driver was then not able to prepare for his only valid flying lap properly.
“I took a lot of risks and I’m glad that I managed to put together such a good lap in the end. It doesn’t look too bad in terms of race pace. It’s very close with our competitors so it will be a difficult but exciting race tomorrow. I gave 200% in the last lap and I didn’t hold anything back. It wasn’t easy because there is always a bit of bouncing and the bouncing will be the case in the race too. I will eat very little (laughs).” – Charles Leclerc said, at the end of the qualifying session in Melbourne.
“The team did a great job. We stayed calm at all times, despite red flags, yellow flags and traffic. The biggest limitation for me was the sun. It was low and at an inconvenient angle and it was almost impossible to see where I was in Q2 & most of Q3. I’m happy with my result today. This circuit is really tricky and I’ve always struggled here in the past. It may not have seemed like it this weekend because we’ve been quite fast, but I’ve done a lot of work to optimise my performance.” – the Monegasque driver continued.
“It is a shame that Carlos got unlucky for this Q3, he was fast too and he definitely had the pace to fight for the pole position with the Red Bull and myself. We will see tomorrow. It would have been easier for us to have both cars in the front but we will try to maximise tomorrow. It’s always better to have the two cars together, but I’ll focus on myself, trying to create a little margin at the start and then we’ll see.” – Scuderia Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc concluded.
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