Charles Leclerc admits Ferrari 'surprise' after Austria pole near-miss

Charles Leclerc has admitted it was a "good surprise" to secure second on the grid for the Austrian Grand Prix, having initially believed a front-row start was out of reach.

Leclerc had looked set for a second- or third-row start based on his performances in second and third practice, with Dino Beganovic having taken his car for the opening session of the weekend.

Even after the opening two parts of qualifying at the Red Bull Ring, the front row still looked an unlikely outcome.

However, in Q3, the SF-26 came alive for both Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton, who briefly provisionally locked out the front row with their final laps.

Ultimately, George Russell secured pole by two-tenths of a second, dropping the Scuderia duo back one position each.

Nevertheless, after back-to-back frustrating weekends in Monaco and Barcelona, Leclerc was extremely pleased to have delivered such a strong qualifying performance.

"Yeah, I'm relatively happy about today," said Leclerc. 

"Of course, the last few weekends have been quite tough, so I just wanted to have a clean weekend and, most of all, a clean qualifying to start well for tomorrow. So, yeah, to start second is a good place to start from.

"The team have been pushing massively to bring upgrades in Barcelona and again this weekend, and that has paid off. 

"If I'm completely honest, I didn't think we'd be starting on the front row until qualifying, really, so it's a good surprise that we are so fast."