Charles Leclerc revealed he pre-empted Lando Norris and Max Verstappen going wide at Turn 1 in the move that helped him win Formula 1‘s United States Grand Prix.
Leclerc lined up fourth on the grid in Austin, but he exited the opening turn in the race lead as the two championship rivals on the front row came together once again.
Norris looked to have protected his pole position advantage on the run-up to Turn 1 until Verstappen’s late lunge down the inside sent both drivers outside track limits.
Leclerc, who had drawn alongside Ferrari team-mate Carlos Sainz, has divulged that he anticipated the chaos ahead and placed his car accordingly to cut underneath.
“I knew that Max and Lando would be very aggressive towards each other,” Leclerc told media including Motorsport Week.
“I mean, they are fighting for the championship. I got a good start.
“I saw that Max was going towards the inside as well as Lando and I was like, ‘I’m just going to prepare the exit of the corner’, which was obviously a winning bet.
“And from that moment onwards, then I could focus on my own race.”
Leclerc revels in Ferrari race pace
Leclerc then utilised Ferrari’s expected edge in race trim to extend his advantage over Verstappen, who dropped behind Sainz as the Italian marque seized a 1-2 finish.
“It feels really good as every victory feels special for its own reason and obviously from the start I felt really good with the car,” he expressed.
“I was quite confident from yesterday because even though there were quite a lot of fights yesterday the car felt great and we knew that we had a good race pace.
“We were a little bit more sceptical about qualifying, but P4 was good; I mean, we were in that fall of P1.
“Then after that start, when I got out of Turn 1 into first, I knew that it was all about trying to use the pace of the car that we had yesterday and trying to take care of those tyres.
“And the car felt great. So from that moment onwards, it was a bit of a lonely race, but it’s a good kind of lonely. And I hope we can reproduce that in the future.”
Ferrari pass the upgrade test
Leclerc believes that Ferrari can take added encouragement that the upgrades it introduced last month saw it possess the quickest package on a conventional circuit.
However, the Monegasque driver has warned that the Maranello-based squad’s breakthrough win doesn’t guarantee that it will be the case across the upcoming races.
Asked what Ferrari can achieve in the remaining races, Leclerc replied: “I wish I could tell you exactly.
“But it’s always difficult because we rely on very small gaps that could make a big difference.
“So it’s very difficult to predict where we will be in the next few races.
“However, we’ve said since two or three races, we brought a few upgrades and we were always waiting for Austin because it was going to be the real test for those upgrades.
“And it seems to be working all good. So that is positive for the future.
“It doesn’t mean that we’ll be having every Sunday the way it’s been today, but it means that we are working in the right direction and that can only be positive.
“So I hope we can reproduce these kind of results more often.”
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