Charles Leclerc: Third place was a big surprise.

      Charles Leclerc qualified third in Austin, which was his best result since the summer break. The Ferrari driver said that the result came as a surprise to him.

      Lewis Hamilton qualified fifth, and for the seven-time world champion this is his best result since the home round at Silverstone.

      Charles Leclerc (3rd): “Third place was a big surprise, especially given how difficult the start of the weekend was for us. We tried to put everything together in qualifying, and we managed to do that. However, there are still things we need to understand about the car, because its performance changes too much from session to session, even though we don’t change anything fundamental.

      The sprint was interesting, and we learned a lot. The team applied the information from that in qualifying, and apparently it worked. I hope it will continue like that and we can claw back a bit.

      Usually the car looks better in the race than in qualifying, so I’m feeling positive. I don’t know if we’ll be strong enough to fight Max and McLaren, but we’ll do everything we can. I hope for a good start, like in the sprint or last year, and then I’ll focus on staying ahead.”

      Lewis Hamilton (5th): “I had problems with the balance. From the first lap I felt huge understeer. So I returned to the pits, and we adjusted the wing by two clicks.

      I went out, came back again, and we adjusted it by another two clicks. They kept adding downforce gradually. If I’m not mistaken, today we changed the front wing settings by eight clicks.

      Because of the understeer it was difficult to get the front tyres to work. But towards the end of qualifying, on the last lap, the car’s balance was close to what I was trying to achieve. But again, from the first qualifying session I had to constantly tweak the car’s setup.

      Overall the team made progress. Great job by all the guys in the garage and the engineers. We took a step forward today.

      I’m happy to be in the top five. Of course I’d like to start higher, but I intend to attack in the race. Let’s see where we end up at the finish.”