Charles and Carlos at loggerheads on the track during the Sprint Race in China: here’s what happened and why the Monegasque complains about his teammate’s too much aggression
April 20, 2024 (changed at 07:06) – MILAN
Four GPs and a mini-race in China were enough for some understandable tension to emerge between Charles Leclerc And Carlos Sainz. The two Ferrari drivers almost collided at the hairpin at Turn 14, a few laps from the end of the Shanghai Sprint Race, after the Spaniard defended himself very aggressively from his teammate’s attack. A maneuver that favored the escape of Sergio Perez, who was then third at the finish line, and which did not go down particularly well with the Monegasque. So much so that, after the checkered flag, there was a very controversial dig at the neighbor in the garage thrown over the radio.
FIRE RADIO TEAM
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In the heat of the moment, immediately after finishing the Sprint Race, Leclerc spoke in a rather frank manner with his race engineer Xavi Marcos on the Ferrari pit wall: “We have to talk about it later. But anyway it seems that he is fighting more against me than against the others…”. The reference is precisely to the rather aggressive defense that Sainz, with his car damaged after the contact with Alonso, put up against him in the final laps of the 100 km race which took place at dawn on Saturday. To better explain what happened, however, we need to take a step back.
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THE FACTS
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Sainz is in fourth place and has already been behind Alonso for a few laps, while Leclerc is sixth behind Perez’s Red Bull: the four, together with Norris, form a train of drivers fighting for the third step of the podium. During the 16th of the 19 planned passes, Carlos attacks Fernando in turn 6: there is then a slight wheel-to-wheel contact in the following corner, a prelude to Alonso’s decidedly rough entry, and the second contact between the two, in the corner 9. Perez takes advantage of the fight, gaining two positions and running away, while Leclerc overtakes his Aston Martin rival and attacks his teammate: at the hairpin Charles goes to the outside, Carlos defends himself on the inside but loses the ideal line and pushes the Monegasque off the track. Finally, a few meters later, the nice surprise overtaking in turn 2 which saw the two Ferrari drivers come close to each other for the second time. Not exactly a soft awakening for the red’s fans…
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