During the sprint race for the Chinese Grand Prix, a fierce battle took place between Ferrari driver Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc. The latter felt that his teammate was over the line, Sainz did not think it was all that bad. Leclerc reveals that a conversation took place afterwards together with team boss Fred Vasseur.
In the closing stages of the sprint race at the Shanghai International Circuit, the Ferrari drivers went into battle with each other, hitting each other and Leclerc briefly going off track. The Monegasque immediately expressed his dissatisfaction via board radio, stating that Sainz "fought him harder than the other drivers". He also said after the sprint race that his teammate had gone too far.
Sainz, on the other hand, did not think it was all that bad, but both drivers said they would talk to each other. They did, Leclerc told us. "We spoke briefly before qualifying and much longer after qualifying with Fred and everything is fine," he says briefly.
The five-time race winner does not want to say more about it. "I'm not going into details, but as I said, sometimes I went over the limit, sometimes he went over the limit and it's part of the game. And now we've had a discussion and it's fine," Leclerc said.
Not the first time Sainz has done this with Leclerc. Leclerc needs to give it back and run Sainz off the road. With Sainz leaving, Ferrari will support Leclerc. One, to show Sainz that he will not be pushed around. Two, to set the tone for Lewis coming in.
That incident looked as hard as the one between SAI and ALO. Luckily, no penalty has been given to SAI in this case. That was an epic battle, that's what racing fans wanna see. Yet the stewards had to hand a penalty basically for guys having a great fight, which I doubt is the right message to send.
I didn't get a chance to watch the sprint however the FIA should have penalized Fernando... just on principal that he's the dog to kick these days. 《/sarcasm》 Edit to add the sarcasm bit as some may not get it.