Charles Leclerc suggested Max Verstappen would have beaten him to pole position for the Formula 1 Singapore Grand Prix had the Dutchman been able to complete his lap.
Leclerc moved to the top of the timesheets with his penultimate effort in Saturday’s Qualifying session, a time that would see him end up 0.022s faster than Sergio Perez.
Verstappen was on course to go faster late in the session, only for the Red Bull driver to run out of fuel and abandon the attempt.
Leclerc suggested a mistake on own final lap would therefore have seen him drop behind the championship leader.
“There was the last sector that was quite tricky because there were quite a lot of damp parts – also Turn 13 was quite tricky,” Leclerc said of his late-session effort in the changeable, drying conditions.
“It was not the same everywhere, so you had to adapt and also go with the track improvements.
“Not my last lap, the one before, was really good and was the lap for pole.
“My last lap, unfortunately, I did a mistake. It would not have changed anything, but maybe [if] Max will have finished the lap we probably will have lost pole for this mistake.”
Leclerc was also on pole last time Formula 1 was in Singapore.
“This one for the conditions, especially obviously Q1 and Q2 with the intermediates and we were really quick, and then you restart a bit everything in Q3 with you finally go on slicks,” he responded when asked which was more difficult.
“But it was very, very tricky out there.”
Leclerc has not had a trouble-free build-up, leaving him stepping somewhat into the unknown in today’s race without some of the data he would typically have.
High tyre degradation is expected to open strategic opportunities too, including a potential undercut. Uncertainty also surrounds the weather, with a high chance of rain remaining over Singapore.
“Our performance has been very, very strong also in the rain in FP3 and into Q1, Q2,” Leclerc noted.
“I think in terms of performance, we are good.
“Before coming to this weekend our focus for the last part of the race is to improve on the Sunday execution.
“So we’ll put all our effort to have a clear Sunday, and if we do, then I’m pretty sure the performance will be there.”
The Singapore Grand Prix begins at 20:00 local time (13:00 BST/08:00 ET/23:00 AEDT).
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