Charles Leclerc, Ferrari, Singapore, 2022

Leclerc relieved to take pole after late switch to slicks and error on final lap

2022 Singapore Grand Prix

Posted on

| Written by

Charles Leclerc said he was very happy to take pole position for the Singapore Grand Prix after a series of problems during the first two days.

The Ferrari driver endured a disrupted day of running yesterday. The qualifying session was complicated by rain which left the track surface wet and it was slow to dry.

After completing the first two phases of qualifying on intermediates, Leclerc was set to continue using them in the final phase, but decided at the last moment to join Max Verstappen and Carlos Sainz Jnr in running slicks.

“It’s been a very tricky qualifying,” said Leclerc. “Q1, Q2 with the inters then in Q3 we didn’t really know what to do. We went with the soft at the very last minute and it paid off.”

Leclerc thought he had ruined his final qualifying effort after making a mistake at turn 16. “It was really tricky,” he said. “I did a mistake in the last lap so I thought we wouldn’t get pole but it was just enough so I’m really, really happy.”

He was especially pleased with the result after a series of problems with his car limited his running on the first day.

“I’m very happy with today’s result especially considering the Friday that we’ve had,” he said. “We’ve had very limited amount of laps yesterday for some issues but we recovered well.

“We don’t have much data for the race run but if we do the perfect race I’m sure we can win.”

Leclerc took pole position for the previous race at the track in 2019. He said his ninth pole position of the season was “really, really special.”

“Every qualifying in street tracks are super on-the-limit,” he said. “Even more when it’s damp like that, there are some parts of the track that are damp like that so you lose the rear.

“But overall I managed to do quite a clean lap and it worked well.”

Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and go ad-free

2022 Singapore Grand Prix

Browse all 2022 Singapore Grand Prix articles

Author information

Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

Got a potential story, tip or enquiry? Find out more about RaceFans and contact us here.

One comment on “Leclerc relieved to take pole after late switch to slicks and error on final lap”

  1. This one position ‘interview’ ‘article’ is always just a verbatim regurgitation of exactly what the driver said in the initial post-qualifying televised interviews.

    Do they still have inside, internal interviews with drivers sitting alongside each other in close proximity where they likely can go into more actual motorsport detail about how they actually drive the car and track, issues they experienced and so forth. Like they used to do? You know, exposed to more than one interviewer? Close enough on a panel style scenario to give us fascinating body language insight of drivers reacting to what another driver said?

    Those were infinitely better than the celebrity culture pap we are expected to swallow these days where there’s no time for more than a few generic questions and three-sentence generic replies. Former drivers usually don’t get much more of a true driver insight out of the podium finishers either.

    The absence of an up front, paywall blockade, two-tier system on Racefans is very cool because it allows readers to determine if subscribing is worthwhile. Unlike Motorsport.com which takes the teasing, elitist approach of all in depth articles being denied bar a intro paragraph.

    Thing is, I’m not seeing much in depth content worth a subscription! Sadly.

    Please do not make the assumption that there’s no longer anybody following F1 who is not addicted to DTSF1 fakery, nor obsessed with every useless twit a ‘celeb’ driver farts on the Shwitter.

    Some of us have been following it for a longer time and are interested in more depth than many presume this sound bite length attention span ‘new generation’ of fans can barely manage.

Comments are closed.