A fake quote on Max Verstappen was recently put up by Sky Italia, with its intention seemingly to demean Ferrari star Charles Leclerc. The Monegasque, however, was having none of it and resorted to rubbishing the claims immediately.
The publication quoted Leclerc saying, “I don’t know how Max drives, but I can’t do the corners like him”.
While there is no doubt that Leclerc has all the respect in the world for Verstappen, there was no way he would praise his 26-year-old rival at his own expense.
sky sports italy posted a charles “quote” (that he didn’t say): ‘i don’t know how max drives, but i can’t do the corners like him’ and charles replied to the post with “???”
good to see he’s sticking out for himself!!! pic.twitter.com/4QfviX5YTR
— clara (@leclercsletters) May 18, 2024
Leclerc immediately replied to Sky Italia’s post with a series of marks and they have deleted it since. However, Sky hasn’t apologized to Leclerc for putting up the fake quotes yet, and it remains to be seen if the Ferrari driver wants to take this forward.
they did
— clara (@leclercsletters) May 18, 2024
Meanwhile, in qualifying ahead of the Emilia-Romagna GP, business as usual resumed for Verstappen. The Dutch driver grabbed his eighth consecutive pole position and will start the race in Imola ahead of Lando Norris in P2.
Leclerc, on the other hand, will feel disappointed. Ferrari brought in upgrades to the race in hopes of competing for the win. And Leclerc also topped two out of three practice sessions. The pace, however, was just not there for him during qualifying, as he finished P4.
Charles Leclerc frustrated with his qualifying performance
Qualifying in Imola ahead of Sunday’s race was tight. Less than two-tenths of a second separated the top three. And with Leclerc having missed out on pole by the barest of margins, he was extremely frustrated with his performance.
Speaking to the media after Saturday’s session, Leclerc said,
“It’s a shame, because when you have upgrades on the car, when you are at [Ferrari’s] home, you obviously want to do really well, but today was the best we could do. Tomorrow we will focus on maximizing the result, but the target remains the win, for sure.”
Leclerc added that his strong runs in FP1 and FP2 did not provide the real picture. Red Bull and McLaren ran their cars on high fuel, which allowed Ferrari to be faster on the day.
However, despite an underwhelming qualifying performance, Leclerc remains optimistic heading into the Grand Prix. Since he had a strong pace on the long runs, the target for him remains to win the race in front the Tifosi.
Thankfully for him, Oscar Piastri (who initially finished P2) got a three-place grid penalty which means he will now start from P3.
