Leclerc explains 'winning bet' on Verstappen-Norris fight at COTA

Charles Leclerc says he made a winning bet by predicting how Max Verstappen and Lando Norris would battle at the start of the United States Grand Prix.

Ferrari dominated at COTA after Leclerc went from fourth on the grid to take the lead out of Turn 1, and Carlos Sainz undercut Max Verstappen for second place. Leclerc made his gains as Verstappen and Norris both went wide at the first corner, and says he had expected the two title rivals to get caught up fighting one another.

“I knew that Max and Lando would be very aggressive towards each other,” Leclerc said. “I mean, they are fighting for the championship. I got a good start. I saw that Max was going towards the inside as well as Lando and I was like, ‘I'm just going to prepare the exit of the corner,’ which was obviously a winning bet. From that moment onwards, then I could focus on my own race.”

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Leclerc led home Sainz for a one-two as Ferrari closed to within eight points of Red Bull in the constructors’ championship, and the Monegasque says it was a comfortable run to the flag once he pulled away early on.

“It feels really good as every victory feels special for its own reason, and obviously from the start I felt really good with the car," he said. "I was quite confident from yesterday because even though there were quite a lot of fights yesterday, the car felt great and we knew that we had a good race pace.

“We were a little bit more skeptical about qualifying, but P4 was good. I mean, we were in that [fight for] P1. Then after that start, when I got out of Turn 1 into first, I knew that it was all about trying to use the pace of the car that we had yesterday and trying to take care of those tires. The car felt great. From that moment onwards, it was a bit of a lonely race, but it's a good kind of lonely. I hope we can reproduce that in the future.”

After a run of competitive races at tracks that were expected to suit Ferrari, Leclerc also believes the performance at COTA bodes well for the rest of the season.

“We rely on very small gaps that could make a big difference," he said. "It's very difficult to predict where we will be in the next few races. However, we've said since two or three races ago in Monza, in Baku, in Singapore, we brought a few upgrades and we were always waiting for Austin because it was going to be the real test for those upgrades. It seems to be working all good.

“That is positive for the future. It doesn't mean that we'll be having every Sunday the way it's been today, but it means that we are working in the right direction and that can only be positive. I hope we can reproduce these kind of results more often.”