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Charles Leclerc took a jibe at the critics after an impressive qualifying session in Miami. The driver from Monaco was on the back foot as soon as the weekend began. The start of the first practice session saw him have a spin and then be forced to miss the entire session.
In the sprint shootout, however, Leclerc did not show any signs of being underprepared, even though he had missed P1. The 26-year-old had a decent buffer on his teammate Carlos Sainz as well, as he qualified in P2 for the sprint.
After the session, Leclerc took a jibe at the critics for the comments passed about his qualifying form in light of being out-qualified at Melbourne and Suzuka by Carlos Sainz. Talking to Sky Sports, the 26-year-old talked about how he was happy to nail the qualifying and shut the critics up.
"I'm happy because there is so much talk now and you are as good as your last race in this sport. When you have two races in a row, where you are bad in Qualifying and I haven't done a great job, people start to talk," Charles Leclerc said.
"So it's good to stop that, so now we need to work on the consistency and try to stay at that level and put the tyres consistently in the right window as I've done in the past," he added.
Charles Leclerc will welcome Adrian Newey to Ferrari
Charles Leclerc was questioned earlier in the weekend about the possibility of Adrian Newey joining the team. The ace designer will be on the market from the first quarter of the 2025 F1 season. If rumors are to be believed, Ferrari, led by Fred Vasseur, is in the hot seat to form an association.
When questioned about the possibility of having Adrian Newey as part of the team, Charles Leclerc said that he would be more than happy if it did happen. He said,
“I will obviously be very happy. I think Adrian is one of those guys in the paddock that you hope to be working with one day in your career."
He added:
“We have an incredible team in Ferrari at the moment. And in the last seven to eight months, we are the team that have progressed the most. However, adding Adrian to a team like this will be amazing.”
The future of Adrian Newey is a question not many have an answer to yet and hence it will be interesting to see if he does end up at Ferrari. For now, there's only speculation that has been making the rounds.
