Charles Leclerc secured another “unexpected” pole position in the 2023 F1 season, this time at the Mexico City GP – but the Monegasque is well aware of a “need” to finally convert it into a win after his last 10 starts from pole have failed to result in a race win.
Photo Credits: Scuderia Ferrari
Despite never looking like a threat to Max Verstappen and Red Bull this weekend, Ferrari came strong in qualifying and secured an unexpected front row lockout for the 2023 Mexico City GP, with Charles Leclerc leading his team-mate Carlos Sainz by a slender margin of just 0.067s, and a further three hundredths of a second ahead of reigning world champion Max Verstappen in P3.
The top six in Q3 were covered by less than three tenths of a second as the cheuqered flag fell, making it an unpredictable session by nature. Speaking after the session, Leclerc himself admitted he “did not expect” to be on pole position at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, as he thought he and his Ferrari car were “lacking quite a bit” compared to Verstappen:
“Absolutely not [expected it]. It’s been two weekends in a row where we say that, so then people will start not believing us anymore,” Leclerc jokingly said about his impressive qualifying pace. “To be honest, I did not expect to be on pole position today, we thought we were lacking quite a bit after FP3.
“But for some reason, once we put everything together, it went well. [With] the new tyres we gained a lot.”
The Monegasque driver scored his first back-to-back pole position since the Italian and Singapore GP’s in 2022 – both of which he also failed to win – and is well aware that he “needs” to switch the focus to executing the race tomorrow in order to “convert” it into a race win, given he’s had “many” unfruitful pole positions recently:
“I’m already focusing on tomorrow’s race, because [we had] many pole positions, but now we need to convert it into a win tomorrow, and of course it’s going to be very difficult.
“Just focusing on ourselves, we’ve had pretty good pace all weekend,” he said when asked what needs to happen in order to finally convert his pole. “I’m not sure whether it’s enough to be challenging for the win, but we’ll try everything in our hands to try and get it, and let’s see tomorrow.”
The 26-year-old is unfazed by the prospect of the Mexican circuit presenting the longest run of any circuit on the calendar down to the first corner, which often means the driver starting on pole gives a slipstream to the chasing pack:
“First place I’m not sure is the best starting place here, but anyway that’s fine. I’m happy, I’ll take that pole position.
“I’m really happy with today, and now as I said, [focus moves to] finalize it tomorrow.”
