Though pole was basically secured, but for the incident involving Sergio Perez, Charles Leclerc believes he would have gone even quicker.

In the final moments of Q3, already 0.225s up on his nearest rival, teammate Carlos Sainz, Leclerc went purple in the opening sector.

However, on the other side of the track, Perez was making the mistake that was to bring qualifying to an early end.

"The first lap was good," said the local hero. "Obviously I waited for Q3 to start and push, and it was a really good lap, but the one that I'm particularly happy about was the second lap in Q3 that I didn't get to finish... that one was really, really good."

Asked where he gained time, he grinned: "A bit everywhere... first corner was quite a bit better, I got a snap... basically I got snaps everywhere, but the lap time was coming.

"I was surprised by how much pace there was because the balance was really, really tricky on that lap," he admitted. "But yeah, it felt really good."

With the youngster's well-documented bad luck at his home track, fans were given a scare when, in Q2, the cameras cut to Leclerc who had come to a stop in the pitlane and needed the assistance of his mechanics. However, it turned out the youngster had missed the signal ordering him to stop at the weighbridge and had to be pushed back.

"It's a very tricky one here," he admitted, "because we get into the pits... I don't even know where the panel is, either it's on the right or the left. It's very far right or far left and so you don't look in that direction, so I actually didn't see at all that I was called to the weighbridge.

"Luckily for me the team saw the alarm and just told me to stop and they pushed me back."

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