Front row in Miami F1 sprint qualifying ‘stops people talking’

The Ferrari driver completed just three laps in practice after spinning at Turn 16 and suffering a clutch issue at the Miami track.

But having been a prolific qualifier in his F1 career, with 23 pole positions, Leclerc admitted he was struggling to find the right window with the tyres in qualifying which was partly blamed for a poor run of form.

Leclerc qualified seventh for the Chinese sprint race and sixth for the Chinese GP, while he was eighth in qualifying in Japan.

When asked if he was relieved by his Miami sprint qualifying performance, he replied: “I am because qualifying has been a weak point for two races in a row.

“At one point in China it was a little bit better but we didn’t have the car to actually show that.

“On such a difficult weekend, I had one lap in practice and go straight into quali, go straight away flat out, we are also only allowed to use one set of tyres [in each qualifying segment], so it was very, very tricky.

“But straight away I felt the feeling and that the hard work that I’ve done earlier in the season to try to put the tyres in the right window has paid off so I am happy.

“There are so many talks now, you are only as good as your last race in this sport, so when you have two races in a row where you are bad in qualifying and haven’t done a great job people start to talk so it is good to stop that.

“Now we need to work on the consistency and try to stay at that level and put those tyres consistently in the right window as I have done in the past.”

Despite his strong qualifying position, Leclerc says he goes into the Miami sprint race blind about his race pace due to no long running in practice.

“I have no idea about our race pace as I did one lap,” he said. “But I really hope we can have a good sprint and have good race pace to have hopes for the win on Sunday.”