Charles Leclerc said his shock pole position at the 2024 Belgian GP felt unworthy for pole as he warned Ferrari might not have the pace to fend off McLaren at the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps in Sunday’s F1 race.
The Monegasque driver and his team seemed largely anonymous through the opening two stages of qualifying and even in the first runs of Q3 but on the final lap, the 2024 Monaco GP polesitter managed to find the time to slot in behind Max Verstappen’s fastest time.
That became pole once the world championship leader’s 10-place grid penalty was applied, meaning Leclerc will lead the field away as he did in 2022 and 2023 too and he admitted it wasn’t something he expected to do.
“I’m very surprised and actually, even when I finished the lap, I didn’t feel like it was worth a second place,” Leclerc told members of the media, including Total-Motorsport.com after taking pole for the 2024 Belgian GP. “It was a good lap, a clean lap, and that’s what you need in those conditions.
“And I believe that especially when you get to Q3 on the last lap, everybody knows that this is the lap and that pushes people to maybe make more mistakes. On my side it was a clean lap, but not an incredible lap.
“So, I’m very happy to be P2 but I definitely do not expect that. I think as a team P5 would have been a good result. Today we are P2 and tomorrow will be starting on pole, so that’s a good thing but we don’t have any magical solution for the race base.”
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Ferrari had struggled with tyre warm-up through the wet weather at Formula 1’s longest circuit but come the end of qualifying they had managed to figure out how to fire the green-walled intermediates up.
And it paid dividends for Leclerc, who pipped Perez to second at the chequered flag by 0.011 as the F1 field found themselves a distant way off Verstappen, who went quicker than anyone else by 0.595.
Can Leclerc and Ferrari win the 2024 Belgian GP?
Taking pole position at the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps is very good, but winning it is another thing entirely with this being one of the worst tracks to start from first at due to the very long run down to Turn 4.
From the exit of Turn 1, the run down to Turn 4 is a straight line in dry conditions and even Eau Rouge and Raidillon is taking flat out, giving the chasing pack an incredible slipstream to mount an attack with.
Leclerc is well aware of this as he made sure keeping Perez behind in the opening stint is race critical, although he also warned Ferrari’s overall pace could be a problem in July 28’s 44-lap race in Belgium.
“Tomorrow is going to be a tricky race for us. It will be dry conditions, and in dry conditions recently, we’ve been struggling a little bit more,” Leclerc told media on his chances of victory. “However, the McLaren is a bit further away than what we expected and there’s Checo [Perez] right behind.
“That will be the main target, and then we’ll see how it how it goes after the first stint, but it’s a good starting position. It’s also a track where you can overtake quite easily, so we’ll need the pace, and for that we will only have the answer tomorrow.”
