The Ferrari stars race to the finish line in third and fourth place at the Las Vegas Grand Prix: While Carlos Sainz is allowed to attend the award ceremony, Charles Leclerc is already completely freaked out on the radio at the Inlap and first has a war of words with his race engineer Bryan Bozzi , and then swings for an all-round punch.
After his race engineer instructs him to pick up the tires on the way back to the pits, Leclerc reacts snippy: “Yes, whatever you want, as always,” the Monegasque radios. Bozzi replies: “Charles, you did your job, okay? Thank you.”
Then the Ferrari star bursts out: “Yes, yes, yes. Yes, I did my job, but being nice just fucks me up every time, every fucking time! It’s not even being nice, it’s easy just respectful.”
The team wants to brush off the tirade of abuse and admonishes the Monegasque: “Charles, Charles!” But Leclerc is just getting going: “I know I have to keep my mouth shut. But at some point it’s always the same. So oh my fucking God…”
Leclerc leaves the radio button pressed: “Shit, shit, shit”
Bozzi tries to calm Leclerc: “Yes, but whatever, you did the right thing for the team.” Afterwards, the engineer sends another request: “Think about the pick-up.”
Leclerc replied: “Yes, yes, fucking pickup, what the hell do we want?” Then the Monegasque man realizes that he still has his finger on the radio button: “Shit, shit, shit, and the radio is on. I’m sorry, that’s on me.”
But why is the Ferrari star so angry? Reason: After his second pit stop, teammate Carlos Sainz actually received an announcement from the command post not to put Leclerc under pressure. But while the Monegasse has problems getting his tires up to temperature after the pit stop, Sainz overtakes him.
“Maybe you can try it in Spanish,” Leclerc had already complained on the radio after Sainz didn’t comply with the team’s request. One thing is clear: In the third to last race together for the Scuderia, the two stablemates are no longer giving each other anything – Sainz has to leave the team for Lewis Hamilton at the end of the season and apparently only drives for himself.
Vasseur wants to mediate: “You don’t have the full picture”
“It was obviously a bit of chaos. But when they sit in the car, of course they each have their own view,” says Ferrari team boss Fred Vasseur, downplaying the skirmish between his protégés after the race: “But don’t worry, we’ll get to that later discuss today.”
Regarding the instructions on the radio, Vasseur explains: “We had to avoid fighting, at the beginning of a stint you just have to pay a lot of attention to tire management, and Carlos was already on lap three or four of his stint,” the team boss understands for both sides: ” The situation was just difficult for everyone, so we’ll discuss it tonight and then it won’t be a problem.”
According to his own statement, Vasseur is “not concerned” that the dispute between his pilots could now escalate. The Frenchman wants to take the whole thing with the necessary calm: “It’s always the same story: They make their comments (on the radio) during the round. But they don’t always have the full picture.”
Sainz: “Nobody in the team is happy today”
Despite third place and the victory in the internal duel at Ferrari, Sainz is anything but happy about the situation with Leclerc after the race: “I guess he’s not happy – but I’m also not happy about how it was handled “Nobody in the team is happy today because we all expected a little more,” explains the Spaniard, adding: “I think a lot more could have been achieved today than third and fourth place.”
But the team’s hesitation in the middle of the race, when Ferrari’s tires collapsed due to blistering, angered Sainz: “I was pretty sure that the team would ask me to let Charles pass because he was faster in that phase, because my tires were grainy,” says the Spaniard about this phase of the Grand Prix.
“I asked the team two or three times to bring me into the pits to get me out of the way and give me new hards so I wouldn’t lose race time letting Charles pass and then having to fight Lewis,” said Sainz, who was surprised: “For some reason we didn’t come into the pits and I had to let Charles through a lap later than planned. That cost a lot of racing time.”
After his teammate’s pit stop, he passed him again with the better prepared tires. However, the fact that things are always so close between him and Leclerc is nothing new: “It’s been like this for four years. Charles and I fight wheel to wheel, not every race, but every second or third, for the same piece of asphalt. We’re both competitive, close on pace, so we always find ourselves in these battles against each other.” At least on Sunday with the better outcome for Sainz.
Source: www.sport.de
