{"id":227767,"date":"2025-10-20T15:41:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-20T15:41:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/227767\/"},"modified":"2025-10-20T15:41:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-20T15:41:11","slug":"charles-leclerc-very-happy-with-us-gp-podium-after-tough-second-part-of-the-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/227767\/","title":{"rendered":"Charles Leclerc \u2018very happy\u2019 with US GP podium after \u2018tough second part of the year\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Charles Leclerc was delighted to claim a podium at the United States Grand Prix amid a \u201ctough second part of the year\u201d, with the Monegasque happy that a \u201crisky\u201d strategy to start on the soft tyres paid off.<\/p>\n

While most of the field lined up on the medium compound when the race got underway at the Circuit of The Americas, Ferrari<\/a> opted to put the C4 soft rubber onto Leclerc<\/a>\u2019s car in P3. The Monegasque overtook McLaren<\/a>\u2019s Lando Norris<\/a> on the opening lap, before defending robustly against the Briton as they fought over P2.<\/p>\n

While Norris eventually found a way past, Leclerc soon pitted for the medium tyres \u2013 and ended up ahead of Norris again in the latter stages once all of the pack had made their pit stops.<\/p>\n

As another close duel unfolded between them, Norris struggled to get ahead of the Ferrari but ultimately made his move into Turn 12 with a few laps remaining. Despite missing out on second place, Leclerc still claimed his first podium since the Belgian Grand Prix in July by taking P3.<\/p>\n

Looking back on his race<\/a> \u2013 in which he was the only car in the top 15 to start on the soft tyres \u2013 Leclerc conceded: \u201cI was a little bit worried when I saw that I was the only car on softs at the beginning, but I kind of knew that it was a bit of a risky move.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I had in mind was to use the softs to try to get free air \u2013 it was quite optimistic because we had two cars in front, but that\u2019s what we tried to do.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe at least gained a position, and that helped us a lot for the rest of the race.\u201d<\/p>\n

While he lost out on a place to Norris by the finish, the 28-year-old added of their battle: \u201cI enjoyed it. Unfortunately, today I lost out at the end, but I had fun in the car.\u201d<\/p>\n

Having faced some tough moments across recent race weekends \u2013 as well as losing mileage during first practice in Austin owing to an issue on his car \u2013 Leclerc was particularly pleased with his result.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m very happy overall because it has been a tough second part of the year, and to be back on the podium here after what was a difficult FP1 with a gearbox problem, we did well, so I\u2019m happy,\u201d the eight-time race winner said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Charles Leclerc was delighted to claim a podium at the United States Grand Prix amid a \u201ctough second…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":227768,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-227767","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-motosport","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-motor","11":"tag-motor-sports","12":"tag-motosport","13":"tag-motosports","14":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227767","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=227767"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227767\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/227768"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=227767"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=227767"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=227767"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}