Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) P2 in England: “I’m so incredibly relieved!”

Charles Leclerc narrowly missed out on his 28th Formula 1 pole position: In the thrilling qualifying session for the historic British Grand Prix, the Monegasque driver was 0.175 seconds slower around the Silverstone Circuit than championship leader Kimi Antonelli, meaning he missed out on his first Silverstone pole but secured a front-row start here for the first time (in 2019 and 2022, he was third fastest on both occasions).

The eight-time Grand Prix winner’s expression says it all after the entertaining qualifying session: he finally seems to have rediscovered his old pace. The 2022 World Championship runner-up says: “I’m so incredibly relieved!”

This confirms that Leclerc is regaining his former pace, as he was already second-fastest after Grand Prix qualifying at the Red Bull Ring.

Charles says: “I’m really glad things are going better again, because for far too long I lacked the right feel in the car. Now I’m slowly getting back to the level I expect of myself. Now I just need to turn that into a good race result.”

“I’ve been working very, very hard behind the scenes with my team to get back into that comfort zone behind the wheel. I was second-fastest in Austria, but the feeling wasn’t quite right yet. Here, it is.”

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“What I’m still lacking now is more consistency, especially in the Grands Prix. I’m still at the start of my comeback, but things are finally heading in the right direction for me.”

“When things weren’t going so well, I took a close look at everything – the car’s behaviour as well as my driving style. That’s now starting to pay off. Of course I’d have liked to have been at the front, but Kimi’s lap was simply too good for that – congratulations!”

“I was able to step it up again in the second run in Q3, mainly because I drove harder and put in a clean lap. Today I was able to show what used to come so effortlessly to me – finding that extra bit of speed in the final run.”

What exactly does Charles need from his car? “I’m driving on the attack, but I couldn’t manage to get the best out of the car with that style. The fast times used to come so naturally; I’d lost that over several weekends. Today it was like that again.”