FORMULA 1

LECLERC ON A ROLL WITH POLE NUMBER FOUR!

Leclerc produced another spectacular performance to take pole position for the Russian Grand Prix.

The 21-year-old took his fourth pole in a row for Ferrari as Lewis Hamilton pipped Leclerc’s team-mate Sebastian Vettel to second, 0.402secs adrift of Leclerc.

LCH beat Vettel by just 0.023secs with Red Bull’s Max Verstappen fourth ahead of Mercedes’ Valtteri Bottas.

Verstappen has a five-place grid penalty and will drop down to ninth on the grid as McLaren’s Carlos Sainz was sixth,

LCH was thrilled to be second on a track where Mercedes did not expect to be able to beat a Ferrari over one lap, and his achievement was a mark of the quality of the world champion’s lap, which was 0.602secs quicker than Bottas.

But the star of the show was Leclerc, the first driver to take four consecutive poles since Hamilton at the end of 2016, and the first Ferrari driver to do so since Michael Schumacher in 2001.

Leclerc said: “The car felt amazing and it feels great to be back on pole but I don’t know whether it is the best track to start on pole – the straight is very long after the start.

“It feels very, very special but I don’t want to think about stats for now. I just want to focus on the job. There is a long way to go tomorrow and it is a good start. we have been competitive all weekend and the race simulation seems good too.”