Charles Leclerc has revealed his Ferrari Formula 1 team had to make a “last minute” engine change on his car before he took pole position at the Monaco Grand Prix.
Leclerc had been the pacesetter through the second and third practice sessions, but he had not headed the times during either of the opening segments in qualifying.
However, the Monegasque held provisional pole with his first effort in Q3 and then improved further on his final lap to end up 0.154s clear of McLaren’s Oscar Piastri.
Leclerc is eager to ensure that it’s third-time lucky on home soil tomorrow, having lined up first on two previous occasions in Monte Carlo and not registered a podium.
“It feels as good as the first one,” Leclerc said when asked how special it was to add to his successive poles in Monaco from 2021 and 2022.
“I think in Monaco the emotions you get, the tension that you have before getting into the car is so much more than anywhere else in the calendar.
“So yeah, once you finish the lap and you hear that you’re on pole position, it’s always a very special feeling.
“However, in the past the emotions were staying for longer.
“But now obviously having started twice on pole and not bringing the victory, which is at the end what matters the most is where my mind is at the moment just trying to prepare and make everything possible.”
Leclerc has disclosed there were some concerns on his side of the garage as Ferrari had to conduct a precautionary power unit change on his SF-24 post-final practice.
“It’s been a bit of a rollercoaster. The weekend has been incredible until after FP3 where there was an issue with my engine,” he divulged.
“And there was an engine swap at the very last minute, which was quite tricky but fortunately for me, there were no consequences on my weekend.”
Leclerc has denied that his qualifying run was plain sailing as he picked up an advertising sticker on his car in Q1 which placed him out of sequence with other drivers.
Meanwhile, Leclerc has conceded that he wasn’t at ease with his Ferrari compared to practice until some tweaks to his front wing helped inspire his pole-setting speed.
“It was very tricky,” he expressed. “I took that sticker, that sponsor sticker on the lap that was pretty important at that time, which slowed us down quite a bit.
“Then we pitted we take off the sponsor banner from the front wing, we went again so that was already quite tricky because in qualifying in Monaco you just want to be out and just do normal laps so I was just praying for no yellow flags or red flags after that. Luckily for me it was okay.
“Then in Q2 we struggled a little bit more with the balance of the car, I couldn’t find the right feeling.
“But then in Q3 we did some modifications, especially with the front wing and the tools and my driving and then I found the pace again.
“So I was a little bit happier in in Q3, but the feeling was for some reason a bit better in FP2, FP3.
Leclerc has stressed that he will adopt the same approach as usual for tomorrow’s race, despite the heightened talk surrounding the Monaco hoodoo he has endured.
“We try to approach every race the same, having in mind that it’s Monaco here track position is very important and we’ll try to maximize our race and take that victory,” he said.
“Yeah, all of what I said is very obvious, but we are just trying to approach it as a normal race, and that’s what we’ll do.”
Asked about the run to Sainte Devote being one of the shortest on the calendar, Leclerc replied: “Well, I didn’t see many times people losing into Turn 1.
“So I guess it’s a very short run down to Turn 1. But never say never, obviously we’ll focus on the start and we’ll see what happens.”
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