Leclerc angry at Sainz after 'unnecessary' move: 'This was over the limit'

For Carlos Sainz, it was a frustrating race. The Spaniard was stuck behind Fernando Alonso throughout the sprint race. Once he passed his compatriot, the latter came back with an ambitious overtaking attempt. In that attempt Sainz's car was damaged, he lost a place to Sergio Perez and came under pressure from his teammate. In that duel, however, it was Sainz who pushed the edge just a little too much.

"Today, Carlos went over the limit. I think in the past there have been cases where I went over the limit. Today it was him and unfortunately there was contact that was not necessary. No contacts are ever necessary, but we were in a different race situation. I had a very good pace because I looked after the tyres well. He was struggling a bit more by fighting earlier on."

Was Sainz fighting too hard with Leclerc?

"It's a shame that I lost these two and a half seconds to Checo and then was too far away to go and fight. So maybe we lost the position there but at the end it's like this. We'll have a discussion. We've had discussions in the past and cleared the air really, really well," Leclerc said.

Carlos Sainz was still unaware: "I need to review carefully because I picked up a lot of damage and had a lot of dirt on my tyres. It was very difficult to keep the car under control after the move with Fernando. It was all over the place. So if he feels I was too aggressive I apologise. But it was not easy out there. Everyone was pushing flat out, and we were all racing hard."

On the team radio, Leclerc was less lenient on his teammate. Initially, the Monegasque stated that they would just have to discuss this after the race before concluding by saying that Sainz fought harder with him than with the competitors.