Monaco qualifying was most tense moment of entire season

Charles Leclerc expects the Monaco Grand Prix to be “extra relaxed” after yesterday’s high-stakes qualifying session.

The Ferrari driver claimed pole place for the third time in 4 races at his house observe. Though he’s but to win in Monaco, he denies feeling any added stress to ship this time.

“I feel the height of the strain really of the entire season, I might say, is in qualifying in Monaco,” he defined. “Then for the race, it’s not like you might be extra relaxed – however, effectively, really you might be extra relaxed simply because [in] the race, you’ve obtained to concentrate on the beginning, you’ve obtained to focus across the pit cease, as a result of clearly the laps across the pit cease are extraordinarily vital.

“However the qualifying in Monaco is an enormous a part of the job. It’s true that previously we didn’t have the success that we wished, however I don’t wish to take into consideration that any extra, and I’m fairly certain that it will likely be a great one this weekend.”

Leclerc mentioned he felt a excessive burden of expectation to ship pole place having been quickest in two of the follow periods forward of qualifying.

“When you will have such a great FP2, FP3, and likewise FP1, you go into quali understanding that you simply’ve obtained all the pieces to lose and for those who don’t take pole place, then you definitely look fully silly.

“The stress was nonetheless quite a bit on, however we managed to tug it off, which was very nice.”

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His preparation for qualifying was disrupted as Ferrari found an issue on his engine earlier than qualifying started. “With the change of engine on the final minute, that wasn’t making me any extra calm,” he mentioned. “So it was a little bit of a tense quali going into qualifying.”

Leclerc has been the driving force to beat up to now in Monaco

“As soon as you might be within the automotive, really, you are feeling so good,” he added. “Or a minimum of I felt so good and all the pieces goes away.

“It’s extra the 2 hours in between FP3 to quali, that there you begin to really feel slightly bit the strain, that you already know that you have to put together all the pieces, that you have to anticipate observe circumstances, and all of this. However as quickly as I put the helmet after which I’m within the automotive, I’m fully high-quality, and I actually don’t really feel something anymore.”

Leclerc’s pole-winning lap was solely a tenth of a second slower than the quickest ever lap of this configuration of the Monaco circuit. He mentioned the automotive “felt higher in every single place” because the session went on however staying on prime of the adjustments in observe circumstances had been a problem.

“What we struggled with probably the most coming to quali [is] the factor that’s most tough to truly counter, which usually we all the time attempt to anticipate within the new circumstances,” he defined. “[The] one factor you can’t actually anticipate is that you’re going sooner via a nook and meaning with the bumps in Monaco, the wheel [is] lifting and the period of time you cross within the air with the wheels not touching the bottom is kind of a bit extra in comparison with FP3 due to the elevated pace across the corners.

“That made it much more difficult to truly really feel the stability and to simply be on the restrict and be constant. So I used to be slightly bit much less constant.

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“Then I began to be a bit extra aggressive with the entrance wing to have a bit extra load and assist that, and that was a bit higher.

“As I mentioned, I feel one of the best feeling of the weekend was FP2, FP3. Nevertheless, in quali, it was nonetheless good, and it was nonetheless one of the best out of everyone, and I feel we’ve obtained an ideal automotive nevertheless it was only a little bit of a trickier session to place all the pieces collectively, however I’m completely happy we did so for Q3.”

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