Leclerc nearly had 'heart attack' from chilling Ferrari radio call at Austin GP

20 October 2023 , 22:56

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Charles Leclerc speaks after taking pole position for the US GP (Image: Sky Sports)

Charles Leclerc gave his race engineer a telling off for a misleading radio message moments after he took pole for the United States Grand Prix.

Max Verstappen looked like he had gone fastest overall as he leapfrogged the Ferrari driver with his second and final flying lap. But that time was deleted as he had exceeded track limits while pushing hard to make sure he would top the timesheets.

Leclerc was the man to take advantage, beating Lando Norris to pole. He was delighted when he was told over the radio, but was soon more stern with his race engineer Xavi Marcos Padros for the way he phrased his message about Verstappen's misfortune.

"So, lap time deleted for Verstappen," came the information over the radio. Leclerc paused for a moment before snapping back: "For f*** sake, tell me the name before," clearly having first thought it was his lap which had been scrubbed by race control.

For the avoidance of doubt, Xavi then came back: "Verstappen lap time deleted, Verstappen." More calmly, Leclerc then replied: "Yeah, well I had a heart attack in the meantime." His Ferrari colleague quickly acknowledged his error.

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Leclerc will be joined on the front row for Sunday's race by Norris who pipped Lewis Hamilton to second place on the grid. Naturally, the Monegasque racer was much happier as he spoke to the media after the session.

He beamed as he said: "It feels good – it feels really good, to be honest, because the lap was really good. There were some mistakes here and there, but I really pushed like crazy so I knew that it wouldn't be the perfect lap, but I know also that I would win by taking a bit more risk elsewhere and that paid off.

"I'm really happy with the lap and really happy to be starting on pole position here. It's not something that we expected. In the last sector we were very strong in FP1 this morning and in qualifying but, all in all, we have a strong car and the feeling in the car is good.

"That is our strength and we've seen it quite a few times this year. When we have Sprint weekends, we are most of the time performing better than expected, just because we arrive in FP1 and have a very solid base with the car. We get to qualifying and we do the job.

"It feels good. Tomorrow [Sprint Shootout and the Sprint Race] might be a bit more difficult because people will learn from today and they will feel a bit better tomorrow in the car, but whatever. I'll give everything to be on pole again."

Daniel Moxon