Leclerc hopeful Ferrari can make most of United States GP secret weapon

Charles Leclerc is hoping Ferrari can take advantage of the extra data it has collected from running split strategies in the United States F1 Sprint and emerge from the Grand Prix victorious.

The Monegasque started second for the 19-lap Sprint but was forced out of a gap down the inside by an aggressive defensive manoeuvre from Red Bull's Max Verstappen, who went on to win.

Leclerc eventually finished third behind Mercedes' Lewis Hamilton, who made the most of the Turn 1 near-miss to sweep around the outside for position.

"There was an opportunity, there was a gap and I tried," explained Leclerc when addressing his attack on Verstappen.

"It was tight and I lost a position to Lewis, but they were a bit stronger on race pace. We expected them to be, so we need to work to try and understand what we can do better to get back ahead [in the Grand Prix]."

Sainz strategy bonus

Ferrari teammate Carlos Sainz was the only driver to select the Soft compound tyres as the rest of the field ran Mediums.

With limited practice running by virtue of the Sprint weekend format, Leclerc - who starts on pole in the Grand Prix - is hopeful this can pay dividends.

"We have quite a lot of data to analyse, having two cars on two different strategies," he said.

"This will be a bit of a help for us because we know how the Softs are behaving. I hope we can take advantage of that and hopefully we can win."