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Charles Leclerc is hoping for a clean Sprint race at the 2022 F1 Austrian GP weekend after claiming P2 in Friday's qualifying session.
Leclerc was +0.029 behind pole-sitter Max Verstappen, with Ferrari teammate Carlos Sainz hot on his heels in third place. The competition was so fierce that the top three qualifiers were only separated by 82 thousandths of a second.
The Monegasque had the provisional pole for the briefest of moments, only to be denied at the end by Verstappen in a dramatic session that saw both Mercedes cars spin and crash out of contention in Q3.
Speaking to British racing driver Billy Monger in parc fermé after qualifying, Charles Leclerc shared his thoughts on the session, saying:
“I think all three were very, very close. In the last lap, I struggled a little bit bringing the tyres back after such a long time in the pits. Max [Verstappen] was just a little bit quicker, so congrats to him but hopefully we'll have an exciting race tomorrow.”
When asked to elaborate on his approach for the Sprint race on Saturday, the Monegasque added:
“I just want to have a clean race. Obviously, it’s been five races where I’ve had a bit of a disaster on my side. I just hope that everything will go clean in the weekend and we can finally score the points that we deserve.”
"Anything is possible" - Charles Leclerc still has faith in his 2022 F1 world championship bid
Despite his obvious struggles in the ongoing 2022 F1 season, Charles Leclerc still believes he can win the world title with Ferrari at the end of the year.
The 24-year-old led the World Drivers' Championship standings for the opening five rounds of the campaign before losing ground to Max Verstappen in the races since then.
Speaking at a press conference ahead of the 2022 F1 British GP, the 24-year-old said:
“It’s been a tough time for the team but I think the way we have worked since the beginning of the season has been extremely good. So this we don’t have to change. Then of course, there has been some reliability problems that we need to fix as quickly as possible and on that, again, I trust fully the team to get on top of these things as quickly as it can be done.”
Leclerc went on to add:
“So in the last four or five races, it became much more difficult, but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible. And I still believe in it as much as I did five races ago. It’s going to be more difficult, but anything is possible.”
Heading into the Sprint race at the 2022 F1 Austrian GP, Charles Leclerc is third in the standings with 138 points, trailing leader Max Verstappen by 43 points.
