This is not the Grand Prix they dreamed of. It’s almost the complete opposite. After experiencing a nightmare race in Canada with two retirements, the Ferraris hoped to turn their heads around the Montmelo circuit near Barcelona. But Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz, who finished in the same places as at the start on the grid (5 and 6), left Catalonia frustrated. “He we missed a lap to fight for 4th position but our competitors were still ahead in terms of speed“, recognized the Monegasque. But above all, the Scuderia saw some tensions arise at the end of this Grand Prix. The fault in particular was an overtaking by the Spaniard at the start of the third lap.
Charles Leclerc saw his teammate come back into his exhausts at the end of the second lap. And at the end of the straight during turn 1, Carlos Sainz even attacked him by going around the outside. A tense maneuver that remained across the Monegasque’s throat. Because in his eyes, his teammate did not respect their team’s instructions. “We had a clear strategy at the start of the race for both of us which was to save tires in order to attack later” Leclerc explained on the official Formula 1 website.Carlos didn’t save tires in turn 14. So he had the opportunity to pass me in turn 1, which was a bit of a shame because we lost some time between us.”
It made our race more difficult
While he lost his second place overall at the end of this Grand Prix, Charles Leclerc was particularly upset because he believes that this action limited him for the rest of the race. “I damaged my front wing because Carlos took the corner and didn’t see that I was on the inside, which made our race more difficult“, he still annoys in comments taken up by Motosport.com. “I didn’t see the point of doing this when it was clearly stated before the race that we had to save in this part of the race.”
Annoyed by the behavior of his teammate, Charles Leclerc even tried to offer some explanations for Carlos Sainz’s attitude this Sunday: “It’s a bit unnecessary, but I also understand because he was at home and it’s also an important moment in his career, so I guess he wanted to do something a bit spectacular. But I probably wasn’t the right person to do that“.
Confronted with the words of the winner of the Monaco GP, the Spanish driver took it upon himself to put him in his place. “I thinks he complains about something too often after a race“, said Sainz, who had to let his teammate pass on the 55th lap due to different tire strategies. “I was on the attack, we were on a new soft tire, Mercedes were on a used soft tire and we had to attack in the first laps when you are on a new tire and try to overtake them, as we said before the race. I overtook Charles and I don’t know if it was because he made a mistake or if he was managing a little too much“Enough to say that the next few days are going to be tense within the Scuderia which did not need that at the moment.
