‘THE CHOSEN ONE’: F1 Twitter goes wild as Charles Leclerc takes POLE in Ferrari’s backyard
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Charles Leclerc
Qualifying certainly featured some surprises. Nyck de Vries, making his race debut this weekend (replacing Alex Albon) out-qualified his teammate, Nicholas Latifi. It was also going to be Charles Leclerc and George Russell in contention for the pole position, and the Monegasque prevailed.
Ferrari were widely expected to utilize a tow with Carlos Sainz (who has a back-of-the-grid penalty) to help Charles Leclerc, but when it came to it, he didn’t need one and took pole position on his own, edging out Max Verstappen by 0.145 seconds. His teammate also came home in third, around two and a half tenths behind.
Of course, there are numerous grid penalties for the drivers, so the grid will be rather jumbled up, but the front row will be occupied by Leclerc and Russell, followed by Lando Norris (P3, just like last year) and Max Verstappen. Fernando Alonso had been expected to be competitive for the front rows, but it didn’t work out for the Spaniard.
Charles Leclerc will start on pole in Monza for the second time
With his result in Monza, Charles Leclerc has now taken 8 pole positions this season, becoming the first Ferrari driver to achieve this since Michael Schumacher took 8 poles in 2004. Unfortunately, he has not always been able to capitalize on them, sometimes through Ferrari’s own mistakes, and once from his own. Daniel Ricciardo will also start P5, his highest grid position this year.
While Red Bull may still snatch the victory, a Ferrari pole in Monza is always a joyous occasion, especially as there was no tow needed after all. Fans agree that this is an impressive outcome for the Monegasque.
However, some are still rather sceptical, considering Ferrari and Leclerc’s not-so-spectacular pole-to-win ratio this season.
Charles Leclerc, for his part, hopes that he can repeat his magic result from 2019: “I’m very happy with the lap. It’s been a great weekend up to now. I hope we can [repeat] 2019 tomorrow.” also adding that: “I will give everything tomorrow to bring the win back home.”
Monza is always an exciting weekend, and the winners in the past three Grands Prix have also been somewhat unexpected, with Leclerc, Pierre Gasly and Daniel Ricciardo winning. It’ll be interesting to see if Leclerc can repeat his heroics from 2019, or will Max Verstappen prevail once again. Or if there’ll be an ‘unexpected’ winner.
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Aniket Tripathi
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