Leclerc: Forgetting perfection crucial to Belgian GP pole

Charles Leclerc says abandoning the search for perfection was crucial in him securing pole position for the Belgian Grand Prix.

Leclerc secured P1 by a huge seven tenths of a second from Sebastian Vettel as Ferrari locked out the front row.

Q3 was played out in slightly farcical scenes as drivers almost collided on several occasions trying to secure a slipstream.

And Leclerc says focusing on his own efforts, and forgoing a tow, was crucial in his success.

He said: "At first I really targeted the perfect slipstream for the first run in Q3, but after that I felt the tyres were not ready for Turn 1 and I actually lost quite a bit of time.

"For the second run in Q3 I asked to be sent whenever the car was ready, to be alone and try to do the job alone without slipstreams.

"In my opinion, on my car, it felt better to have tyres in the right window than having the slipstream so we went as soon as possible."

Given the chaos, Leclerc was shocked to end up so far ahead of Vettel: "It was very tricky, especially in Q3; I struggled quite a lot.

"The start of the lap was always very messy because there was quite a lot of traffic with all the cars around.

"But at the end I managed to do the full lap correctly. I'm very happy. I definitely did not expect to be that much ahead but very happy with my lap anyway."

Vettel made errors on both Q3 laps to hinder his pole chances and also saw attempts to secure a slipstream not go to plan.

"It was more important to get the tyres in the right position for me, or in the right place," said Vettel.

"On both laps I was too close to the cars in front and the tyres were not right to start the lap with. It was lose/lose. The straights were good but I was too close and lost quite a lot of time in sector two."

Related

More F1 news

Latest F1 news

Carlos Sainz fires 'wake up' warning to Williams as F1 team risk losing star driver

• 19 minutes ago

George Russell told to ditch Mercedes simulator - 'Sniff the air'

• 1 hour ago

Aston Martin 'set for huge Honda engine boost' and these are the teams they could now challenge

• 1 hour ago

Haas to make F1 driver lineup change at Hungarian Grand Prix

• 3 hours ago

Max Verstappen's F1 future takes unexpected turn after Belgian Grand Prix

• Today 18:44

Toto Wolff warns George Russell he is not blameless for Mercedes woes

• Today 17:27