"I’ve already got 23 of them" - Charles Leclerc's damning dismissal of his pole position record

Charles Leclerc has completely dismissed his impressive pole position record by claiming that the season's highlight tends to be the victories. Ever since the Monegasque stepped up to Ferrari in 2019, his qualifying record has been impressive. Slowly but steadily he has developed the reputation of being the best driver over a lap in F1.

While this reputation has certainly helped Leclerc reach a point where even if the car has an outside chance, he would be able to secure pole position for the race, it has its byproduct as well. While the Ferrari driver could continue to secure pole positions for these races, he would be unable to convert most of those as the car is just not good enough.

As a result, he has this unenviable record of 23 pole positions and just five wins in his career. In an interview with German outlet AMuS, when questioned what were his highlights of the season, Leclerc did not stress too much about the pole positions.

“Normally it’s the victories. Of course, a pole position feels good, but I’ve already got 23 of them. And of course, the whole thing is clouded by the fact that I already know on Saturday that Sunday will be much more difficult. That’s why pole positions are no longer a real highlight," he said.

"That’s why the best thing for me this year was that I helped to understand the car and transform it in a direction that is better and will lead us back to success in the medium term. Especially because it was so difficult to reach this understanding. Usually, it’s always just about finding a few more points of downforce. This time it’s much more complex and it’s much harder to make the connection between a change and the lap time,” Leclerc added.

Charles Leclerc gives his take on final championship positions for drivers

When questioned on his take about the final championship position for drivers, Charles Leclerc felt that the more important part of the equation was to find out when the team could get back to having a competitive car.

“The championship position is always important for me as a driver. But whether I finish fourth or seventh is secondary to whether we soon find our way back to a competitive car, as we had in the first half of the 2022 season,” he explained.

Leclerc had a brilliant start to the ground effect era as he won two of the first three races. However, since then, Ferrari's development and his title challenge went completely off the rails.