Charles Leclerc says Carlos Sainz was not following the technique given by Ferrari when making an attempt to “do one thing a bit spectacular” in overtaking his teammate early within the Spanish Grand Prix.
Sainz went spherical the surface of Leclerc into Flip 1 to take fifth place within the opening laps, squeezing the opposite Ferrari on the apex and inflicting gentle contact that noticed the Spaniard run vast however retain the place. Leclerc says that went towards the plan for taking care of tires early within the race and he feels Sainz was making an attempt to make an announcement in entrance of his residence crowd however shouldn’t have achieved so on his teammate.
“We had a transparent technique originally of the race with the crew to each save tires to assault late on,” Leclerc stated. “Nevertheless, Carlos on that lap didn’t do any saving in Flip 14 and naturally had a possibility to overhaul in Flip 1, which is a little bit of a disgrace as a result of we misplaced time between us. I broken my entrance wing due to Carlos making the flip, not seeing that I used to be on the within and that makes our race harder. Nevertheless it wouldn’t have modified the tip outcome considerably.
“I didn’t perceive the purpose of doing that when it was clearly acknowledged earlier than the race that we needed to save on this a part of the race. It’s a bit pointless, however I additionally perceive that I suppose it’s his residence race, and it’s additionally an essential second of his profession, so I suppose he needed to do one thing a bit spectacular, however I most likely wasn’t the correct particular person to do this with.”
The 2 drivers swapped positions afterward as Leclerc chased George Russell to the flag — ending 0.3s behind the Mercedes — however he was much less involved in regards to the incident impacting his probabilities of ending larger than fifth.
“If you take a look at how shut we completed with George in entrance, there’s all the time issues we will do higher, however we simply didn’t have sufficient tempo to do something higher right this moment.”
Sainz additionally had one other incident that noticed him run barely vast at Flip 1 as Lewis Hamilton overtook him on the within, and he was sad that the stewards allowed the transfer to face.
“I felt like he ran me off the observe,” Sainz stated. “I used to be half a automotive size forward, and usually the rule this 12 months says that if you happen to’re forward across the outdoors, they should provide you with area, in case you have half a automotive forward. That’s usually what the stewards have dominated this 12 months.
“So I used to be making an attempt to learn from that rule, as a result of that’s how they’ve dominated up till now. I’m not saying he was racing laborious or not laborious — simply making an attempt to use the rule that the stewards have utilized all season.”
