Charles Leclerc gives x-rated response to Ferrari engineer after Max Verstappen message that gave him a heart attack

Charles Leclerc was left punching his steering wheel after misunderstanding a Ferrari radio message at the US Grand Prix.

The Monegasque driver took pole position in Austin but only after Max Verstappen's Q3 lap was chalked off by stewards.

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Verstappen finished five-thousandths of a second quicker than Leclerc before his run was deleted for exceeding track limits.

When this was relayed to Leclerc by a Ferrari engineer, the 26-year-old mistakenly thought it was his chances that had been dashed.

Speaking afterwards, Leclerc said: "“I just had a heart attack because my engineer told me, ‘Track limits’, and then, ‘For Verstappen'.

“And when I heard ‘track limits’, I punched the steering wheels and my helmet, and then I heard ‘for Verstappen’ and then I was, ‘OK, that’s better news for us!’"

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Leclerc was heard complaining to the Ferrari staffer down the radio for giving him a 'heart attack', shouting 'for f*** sake' several times.

After the race, the driver added: “That’s why 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!”

Leclerc, who will start ahead of Lando Norris and Lewis Hamilton, was full of praise for Ferrari after his third pole in a Formula 1 Sprint weekend this season.

“The car was really good and I think this is our biggest strength when we get to a weekend like this," Leclerc said.

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“It’s a Sprint weekend — FP1, every lap counts, and it’s very important to be starting with a strong base setup of the car. That’s exactly what we did, so from the first lap I built up the confidence with the car and I felt good straight away.

“In qualifying I tried to put everything together. The first lap in Q3 felt quite a bit better than the second lap but I think there was a bit of track improvement, and the second lap was good enough for pole — even though on track we got beaten by Max, but his lap time was deleted later on — but I’m very happy to be on pole.

"It’s a surprise for us. We definitely did not expect to be fighting for pole position.”