Martin Brundle: "Charles Leclerc was lucky not to get a five-second penalty"

Come on people, unless you are blindly refusing to accept blatant facts and reality that's staring you right in the face then you must be stupid.
Yes that is racing and things like that will happen, it's also the reason why they are rules for those infractions. What LeClerc did is no different to what Vettel did in Canada, the one difference is, in Canada was the Wall. How can it be the correct penalty for Vettel forcing Lewis almost into the Wall not leaving him the car space racing room, but now only give a warning for LeClerc forcing Lewis off the track not leaving him the same car space racing room?
The reason for that is, Monza, Italy, had the Stewards taken the same stance against LeClerc, riot would have broken out (not literally). They didn't want to offend Ferrari yet again, especially in their home race.
Had that been any other race or driver they would have gotten that penalty just like what Vettel received. The other reasoning is, the F1 Stewards don't want to be seen in the light as favouring Lewis Hamilton when an infraction happens against him or he protest against any.
I don't want to believe that they are being bribed to be conveniently silent or blind, but nothing is off the table especially when it comes to Ferrari and that did not start yesterday.

this was political. if had been another team or another race leclerc would likely have received some sort of penalty and as the rules stand he should have. running opponents off track has been happening since racing began but now it does seem a little more prolific. in the good old days metal would bend so there was a higher likelihood of being able to continue to race "elbows out" but with carbon fibre - not so much. when things went wrong in an aluminum chassis drivers died. late sixties early seventies i believe the stats were 3 drivers per year. does anyone know the stats from he fifties? its incredible how much more safely the sport is operated nowadays (thx jys) (sadly big paradigm change post asds death). this discussion needs to be ongoing; and likely it will. leclerc learned a big lesson when dicing with verstappen and perhaps not for the better. watch hamilton and raikkonen tussle over the years- thats how its done; hard nosed racing, mutual respect but fair play.

Martin...you do know "pay offs" are common place in this country. Ask Michael Masi. He knows all about that sort of stuff.