“Don’t put pressure on him”
“No one is higher than Ferrari” is a slogan that every leader of Il Cavaillino Rampante has carried to the letter, and which even Mattia Binotto already had to repeat during his leadership, when he had to deal with the differences between Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz. .
Charles LeClair’s Rant
The Monegasque is a competitive beast who, like Vettel and Sainz, has shown signs that he doesn’t like being outclassed. The attitude that is repeated among potential champions, although it does not have to be negative, pushes the team to the limit.
Charles Leclerc showed enormous anger at the end of the Las Vegas Grand Prix, in which Carlos Sainz qualified ahead and finished ahead, having overtaken him on track. With the implausible excuse that he didn’t know the radio was on, he let out actual expletives and also said he was tired of being a good guy.
Only Ferrari knows what was said behind closed doors, but Carlos was given no instructions to let Charles Leclerc pass in the final part of the race. Brian Bozzi, Monégasque’s race engineer, mistakenly told his driver that Sainz had been ordered not to overtake him, but Carlos never received this order.
Firstly, because Ferrari cares about fighting for the constructors’ title, and changing the driver order did not help achieve this goal at all. Secondly, because Ferrari is not fighting for second place, which is what Charles Leclerc would have claimed, being close to Lando Norris.
Hypothetical fight for second place
The Briton leads Charles Leclerc by 21 points in the general classification with two races remaining. If Sainz had let Leclerc pass, the difference would have been 18 points. Asking a driver to relinquish a podium position so that another can be 18 points behind the runner-up instead of 21 is simply an undignified request from Ferrari.
Although it has been repeated many times that Carlos Sainz disobeyed Ferrari, this is not true. Quite the opposite. Carlos was asked to switch positions at Turn 26, which he complied with, although Leclerc did not like the Spaniard’s choice of position, as he radioed “Fuck, fuck. He should know that I’m killing my tires with this. “Damn idiot.”
The race continued, including Sainz’s aborted stop, which cost him valuable time. Carlos stopped before Leclerc, and the team calculated that when the Monegasque stopped, he would start ahead of Sainz, and even on newer tires.
“Don’t put pressure on him”
And while the numbers worked for Ferrari’s strategists, they didn’t take into account how slow the first lap could be on a track with very cold tires. And so it happened. Charles was walking very slowly when Sainz caught him. Sainz was specifically told “Don’t put pressure on him”, which he did not do as he arrived and advanced without any effort.
Leclerc’s engineer mistakenly informed his driver that Sainz had been ordered not to overtake, to which Charles Leclerc replied: “Try telling him in Spanish.”
The laps continued until the checkered flag when Leclerc finished just over two seconds behind Sainz and asked, as if surprised, if the race was over. The moment he responded to his engineer in an unkind tone.
– Yes, as you wish, as always. Yes, yes, I did my job, but what bothers me is that I always have to be nice and respectful. I know I should shut up, but for God’s sake it’s always the same. Say what you want… oh damn, the radio is on, sorry,” concluded Charles Leclerc.