After qualifying at Silverstone, Charles Leclerc explains what change helped him in his internal team battle against Lewis Hamilton
Charles Leclerc qualified ahead of his teammate Lewis Hamilton for the British Grand Prix. According to his own statement, he was likely helped in this session by the fact that he is no longer trying to copy the seven-time world champion’s setup.
“I’ve had two approaches recently,” Leclerc explains after the session. “On the one hand, I’ve tried to adapt my driving style and replicate what Lewis does. After all, that clearly works.”
“Or,” Leclerc said, “I keep pushing in my own direction and try to find a way to make the car better suited to my driving style. [For Silverstone] I took the latter approach. That means: Use what you know has worked in the past and try to find a way using all the tools available to you in this car.”
It was precisely this approach that paid off for Leclerc in qualifying. As a result, “Il Predestinato” managed to beat his teammate by nearly two-tenths of a second at the “Home of British Motor Racing.” While Leclerc will start the Grand Prix from second position, Hamilton will start from third.
Between his two runs in Q3, Leclerc managed to shave off crucial tenths of a second. When asked how he managed to do that, the Monegasque driver replied:
“I just pushed a little harder everywhere. To be honest, I’m really happy with the result, as you already said [referring to the journalist asking the question]. Usually, that means I know where the car’s limit is.”
“It’s always been my strength that I can squeeze a little [more time] out of the car on the second run of Q3, and I’d lost that feeling a bit lately. I’ve worked very, very hard to get that feeling back.”
“Today,” Leclerc explains, “it feels like that feeling is back. Now I’m focusing on maintaining that feeling, because I know how much it depends on fine-tuning and small details. But I think we’ve taken a step forward today.”
Nevertheless, Leclerc remains cautious in his comments after qualifying. In recent weeks, the 28-year-old has almost never been able to outperform his teammate in qualifying. “I want to emphasize that this is just one qualifying session,” he said.
“In Austria, I didn’t have a [bad session] either, but I don’t think I had a good feeling there. That doesn’t mean my season is going to turn around completely from now on. But at least it feels good to have a qualifying session where the feel is right, where you know where your car’s limit is.“
”I didn’t make any mistakes in qualifying because I knew exactly what to expect from the car. And that’s a particularly good feeling after the problems I’ve had lately.”
Leclerc didn’t reveal exactly what changes were made to the car after the session. However, we do know that both Ferrari drivers could be in for a difficult Sunday. Even with his old feel for the car, Leclerc was nearly two-tenths of a second behind pole-sitter Kimi Antonelli.