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Charles Leclerc has said that Carlos Sainz was “a bit over the limit” in their battle for fourth in the Chinese GP sprint.
Photo: Scuderia Ferrari
Sainz, who had been stuck behind Fernando Alonso for much of the race, attacked his compatriot on lap 16, with the pair touching twice as Alonso adopted aggressive manoeuvres to retain the position.
This led to Sergio Perez overtaking the pair and the Aston Martin driver retiring, leaving the Ferrari duo to do battle.
Sainz put up a robust defence at the turn 14 hairpin – with the two SF-24’s banging wheels on the exit – before Leclerc muscled his way through at turn two.
The Monegasque came on the team radio after the race to air his frustration with his teammate’s antics, saying that they ‘needed to talk after the session.’
Leclerc said that Sainz crossed the line but admitted that he has done the same in the past and stressed the importance of “clearing the air” before the rest of the weekend.
“I think do yes,” responded Leclerc when asked if his teammate had overdone it in his post-race interview. “But to be honest, I have crossed the line myself in the past.
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“Usually when this happens, we have a discussion, we clear the air. We went through that in the past already and it went really well so I have no worries that will be the case also this weekend.”
“But today he went a bit over the limit.”
Leclerc was disappointed to finish fourth after letting Perez get away, as he had saved his tyres when stuck in traffic for a late attack on the cars ahead.
“The contact between us two, being in a different race situation because I had saved quite a bit the tyres, I had a good pace at the end and it’s a bit of a shame we lost that gap to Perez and couldn’t go and overtake him.
“P4, it could have been P3, it’s one point you can always do better, but we will focus on this afternoon as this will be the gamechanger.”
Sainz ‘damage and dirty tyres’ didn’t help
Sainz said that he took a lot out of his tyres in the early stages trying to pass Verstappen as he thought a win was possible and therefore was in a managing state for the rest of the race stuck behind Alonso before trying for an overtake late on.
And while a move would have possibly secured him third place, the two- time champions “all or nothing” approach with a dive up the inside of turn nine put pay to that as the Ferrari driver picked up damage and dirt on his tyres which he believes made the situation worse when battling Leclerc.
“I got Fernando and think I did a really good move around the outside of turn seven,” Sainz explained. “But from then on, he decided to be a bit all or nothing into me in turn nine, which cost us both the race.
“I picked up damage and a lot of dirt on my tyre from that optimistic move, and from then on I was sliding around with the damage to my car and the dirt on my tyres.
“I was doing everything I could to defend and obviously sliding had a bit of a moment with Charles, but I apologise if I did anything over the limit, but we were all racing really hard today, and I tried my best to keep everything under control.”
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