“I Had a Heart Attack”: Charles Leclerc’s Engineer Induced Agony After Max Verstappen’s “Little Mistake”

What an entertaining start to the weekend we have had already. The United States GP qualifying session is one to remember as it features three different teams in the top three for the first time this season. However, this unique scenario wasn’t straightforward. The qualifying had a lot of ups and downs, a few disappointments, and almost a heart attack. You read that right, the US GP qualifying session almost gave Charles Leclerc a heart attack and Max Verstappen is to be blamed thanks to his “little mistake”.

Well, it’s a bit of both Max Verstappen and Xavier Marcos Padros‘s doing, or as Leclerc likes to call him, Xavi. Xavi is Leclerc’s race engineer and is the man you always hear on the other side of Leclerc’s radio conversations. So right after the conclusion of the 2023 US GP qualifying session, Xavi made a statement that gave the poor Ferrari man a heart attack.

Charles Leclerc almost gets a heart attack thanks to his race engineer’s choice of words

As we all know, Leclerc will be starting the main race from the pole position, which was a delight for the Tifosi. Leclerc would be hoping to convert his third pole of the season into his first race win but, as he would know himself, it’ll be easier said than done. However, let’s hear it from the Monegasque himself why his third pole almost gave him a heart attack.

During the post-qualifying briefing, Leclerc was asked about a certain radio exchange between him and Xavi. The interviewer asked, “Charles can you explain what happened on the radio when you were informed about Max’s time being deleted? Did you think that it was your lap that got scrubbed? And how much of a threat do you think Max is still going to be from sixth on the grid?”

To this Leclerc replied, “I just had a heart attack, because my engineer told me track limits and then… for Verstappen. And when I heard track limits, yeah, I punched my steering wheel and my helmet, and then I heard for Verstappen and then I was ‘OK, that’s a better news for us’. So no, that’s why I, in the moment, I just said to Xavi, ‘please tell me the name before the track limits, just so I don’t get too excited’. And that’s it.”

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This scenario arose only because of Verstappen’s “little mistake” that botched his qualifying. So before we put all the blame on Xavi for Leclerc’s high heart rate, let us highlight Verstappen’s error as well.

Max Verstappen reveals the moment when his final qualifying lap went out of his hand

Since 2021, we can count on one hand the number of times the mighty Max Verstappen has put a foot wrong. The 2023 US GP qualifying session’s last flying lap is part of that compact list now. To be precise, Verstappen exceeded track limits during his last flying lap of Q3, which demoted him to P6 from the P1 he qualified for.

However, the mistake that caused this rare occurrence happened during the start of the lap, as a result of the Dutchman exceeding track limits. Verstappen himself revealed that during a post-qualifying interview.

When asked if he knew he went over the track limits, Verstappen admitted, “I mean, I knew in turn 19 that it was going to be a close call. I mean I had a little mistake in turn 1 so I had to really push for it in the rest of the lap. It’s fine margins. Honestly, I did not even understeer I just tried to maximize the corner and I misjudged it by a little bit.”

There you have it folks, a rare mistake authenticated by Max Verstappen himself. You can remember this rare scenario because he hardly ever makes such mistakes and/or his actions to rectify that mistake often make many forget. The Dutchman proved that as he continued to talk about the incident nonchalantly. He said, “It’s very fine margins when you’re pushing to the limit. Of course, it’s a but unfortunate but it makes Sunday also a bit more fun.”

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It will be interesting if the usual race weekend service will resume on Sunday after a few laps or if Leclerc can hold off the Dutchman. To think this is just the start.