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.
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.”
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