Leclerc believes he can still win despite trailing Hamilton in Sprint

Charles Leclerc expressed his high hopes of winning the United States Grand Prix, despite losing out to Lewis Hamilton in Saturday’s Sprint.

The Monegasque lined up second on the grid and looked like challenging pole-sitter Max Verstappen, but a merciless defense from the Dutchman saw Leclerc pushed wide, which opened the door for Hamilton. From then on the Mercedes comfortably pulled ahead and built almost a 10 seconds gap over the course of 19 laps.

“We expected them to be stronger and they were, so we need to work to try and understand what we can do better to be a step ahead tomorrow.” Leclerc said.

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“I mean, at the end we have quite a lot of data to analyse, having two cars on two different strategies. I think this will be a bit of a help for us because we know how the softs are behaving for tomorrow. I hope we can take advantage of that and hopefully we can win tomorrow.”

Leclerc starts Sunday’s race from pole position after firm favorite Verstappen will line up 6th after being penalized for exceeding track limits in Fraday’s qualifying.