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Charles Leclerc returned to the top step of the podium for the first time in 15 months on Sunday afternoon at the British Grand Prix, but it was something the Monegasque said on Saturday evening that piqued the interest of F1 pundit Jolyon Palmer.
Home hero Lewis Hamilton began the weekend on the better foot out of the two highly ambitious Ferrari drivers, claiming pole position for Saturday’s Sprint race with a time over three tenths faster than the efforts of Charles Leclerc.
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The seven-time world champion would go on to miss out on victory due to Kimi Antonelli’s superiority in championship-leading machinery, and would end up being dealt another blow on Saturday after Leclerc’s bounce-back to form in qualifying for the Grand Prix.
The following day would bring more good fortune for the Monegasque driver, culminating in a second win for Ferrari in 2026, leading F1 pundit Jolyon Palmer to do some digging into the reason for Leclerc’s sudden uptick in performance.
- READ MORE: Lewis Hamilton told why Charles Leclerc’s British Grand Prix win was ‘particularly great’ for him
Jolyon Palmer ‘fascinated’ by the changes Charles Leclerc made between Sprint qualifying and GP qualifying
In his analysis column for F1.com following the conclusion of the British Grand Prix weekend, Palmer highlighted how he was ‘fascinated’ by what Leclerc said about his newfound confidence in the SF-26 after outqualifying Hamilton for Sunday’s race.
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In the media pen on Saturday evening, after qualifying one spot ahead of Hamilton in P2 for the Grand Prix, Leclerc told journalists via F1.com, “The feeling wasn’t so good yesterday either, but I analysed a lot of the data.
“Little by little, you start to understand the bigger picture of why you’re struggling and what you need to change. I went in a direction that my intuition was telling me was the right one to adapt the car to my driving style, and that worked out very well today.”
It was these words that drew Palmer’s attention, with the former F1 driver writing, “I was fascinated to hear Charles talk afterwards about making philosophical changes to the car after he had seen something in the data from his Friday Qualifying efforts.
“After working so hard behind the scenes, he had a hunch that something might just click for him with this change.” He continued with, “Well, it’s pretty clear now that it did work, but Charles and Ferrari are being understandably coy about what exactly it was he changed.”
After sifting through the data himself, Palmer identified that Leclerc had got himself into the same sweet spot that Hamilton has been in for quite some time now.
“The data from Friday into Saturday shows that he had a much more settled rear end and therefore was able to attack his corner entries a lot more, akin to Hamilton recently,” the F1 pundit added.
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