Charles Leclerc stated he had to \u201cpray\u201d he would escape without damage on the run to Turn 1 in Mexico as he went wheel-to-wheel with rival drivers.<\/p>\n
Leclerc started the grand prix from second on the grid but was sandwiched in between team-mate Lewis Hamilton and Red Bull’s Max Verstappen as they approached the opening corner.<\/p>\n
Verstappen and Leclerc both ran wide, with the latter taking the lead of the race before lifting off the throttle and conceding the position to Lando Norris.<\/p>\n
Although Leclerc consolidated his spot over Hamilton by running off the road, the stewards did not intervene.<\/p>\n
The Monegasqur driver went on to score second place, matching his best result of the year.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Reflecting on the opening lap chaos, Leclerc told media including RacingNews365: \u201cI didn’t enjoy that at all.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI normally quite like fighting, but in this case, being in the middle of Lewis and Max it\u2019s one of those kinds of situations where, as a driver, you cannot do much.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cJust pray that Max and Lewis will give me enough space just to make the corner. And I touched a little bit with Lewis.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd then there was very poor grip on the outside, so I had to cut the corner.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cBut luckily for the three of us, it had no consequences.\u201d<\/p>\n
Leclerc’s run to second place helped lift Ferrari back into second place in the constructors’ championship with four rounds remaining.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Charles Leclerc stated he had to \u201cpray\u201d he would escape without damage on the run to Turn 1…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":246883,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,827,830,828,831,829,826,813,823,825,806,805,824,803,804,822,85],"class_list":["post-246882","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-daniel-ricciardo","tag-f1-calendar","tag-f1-live","tag-f1-results","tag-f1-standings","tag-ferrari","tag-formula-1","tag-lewis-hamilton","tag-max-verstappen","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motorsport","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-racing","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246882","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=246882"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246882\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/246883"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=246882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=246882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=246882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}