A pole position in his 100th Grand Prix for Ferrari. The weekend in the United States looked set to be very nice for Charles Leclerc. But things took a different turn: during the race, the Monegasque did not come into his own, and on top of that, he was removed from the results afterwards due to an unregulated floor. That could have been added too, as Leclerc also had to admit afterwards that he had been in tremendous pain for days.

Indeed, Leclerc had a huge toothache. In the past, Jack Plooij could then have helped the Ferrari driver. After all, the former pit reporter is a dentist by origin, and was known to help anyone in the F1 paddock who suddenly had a toothache. Meanwhile, Plooij is no longer active in the paddock, so Leclerc had to find another way to suppress his severe pain.

Leclerc took painkillers

"Since Thursday I have been taking quite strong painkillers. It's okay now because I took painkillers before the race. It was sometimes worse and sometimes better. But it didn't affect me during the race," the Ferrari driver told Bild. At the time, he did not know that a penalty was hanging over his head for the illegal floor under his car. After slowly sinking through the field from pole, Leclerc eventually crossed the line in sixth place. He thus lost that spot after his disqualification.

Carlos Sainz was the happier Ferrari driver. The Spaniard drove a strong race, and eventually got to take the trophy initially awarded to Lando Norris for third place. Following Lewis Hamilton 's disqualification, Norris and Sainz moved up one place in the results.