Charles Leclerc suspects his team mate didn’t follow Ferrari’s instructions when the pair fought for position at the start of the race.
Carlos Sainz Jnr passed Leclerc at turn one on the third lap, running off the track as he did. But Leclerc believes his team mate ignored a pre-race instruction to both drivers to preserve their tyres through the fast final corner at the Circuit de Catalunya.
“The team had told us before the race to save the tyres at this moment of the race,” Leclerc told the official F1 channel. “So I was doing exactly that.
“In the last corner, it’s a really good corner to save and we knew that we had to save but I think Carlos used that one lap pushing a lot in turn 14 and then was very close to me and overtook, which was fine.
“But then he obviously, I think, did the corner like if I was not there. So it’s a bit of a shame. We will speak [about] that internally.”
The stewards decided not to investigate the incident between the pair. Leclerc believes Sainz, who does not have a contract for next season, was trying to impress at his home race.
“It’s not a big deal, I understand it’s his home race and a very important moment of his career,” said Leclerc. “So I guess he wanted to do something spectacular, but I probably wasn’t the right person to do that with.”
Leclerc closed on George Russell over the final laps of the race but ran out of time to attack the Mercedes driver for fourth place.
“Unfortunately we came just one lap short of P4 which was a bit of a shame, but that’s the best we could do today,” he said. “I think the strategy we did well to offset ourselves a bit with the people around. A shame we lost a bit of time between the cars at the beginning, but it’s like this.”
“I was managing the tyres well in the first stint – that’s what it was for, to try and go longer after that – and, I did that perfectly,” he added. “So there wasn’t much more we could have done on that.”
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2024 Spanish Grand Prix
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