Charles Leclerc has blamed the crash he was involved in during the first lap of the Mexican Grand Prix of Formula 1 on the circuit configuration. The Ferrari driver calls for safety improvements, suggesting that “a wall” at corner 4 could have prevented the incident that affected his race.
Last Sunday, the Scuderia lost a clear victory at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez. Lewis Hamilton started the race from pole, while Leclerc emerged in third, quickly positioning himself in second place after overtaking George Russell.
Leclerc attempted to overtake Hamilton on the outside at turn 1, intending to complete the maneuver on the inside of the next corner. However, the seven-time world champion momentarily held his position.
In an effort to surpass him, Leclerc attacked again on the outside at corner 4, but both drivers braked too late, forcing Leclerc to leave the track and gain an illegal advantage at corner 5, resulting in a five-second penalty. This relegated him to fourth place, while an indignant Hamilton finished second, behind Max Verstappen, with Kimi Antonelli completing the podium.
Leclerc has commented that during the drivers’ meeting prior to the race, the need to modify some layouts for increased safety was discussed: “The conclusion is that we need to change the tracks to prevent drivers from taking so much risk from the inside. If there were a wall at the exit of turn 4, neither Lewis nor I would have pushed so hard on the braking.”
This controversy intensified due to the usual initial chaos that occurs at the Mexican Grand Prix, which last year saw Verstappen and other drivers go off track at turn 1. For this reason, stricter penalties were agreed for those gaining an advantage off-track at corners 1-3 and 4-6 during restarts.
Leclerc argues that “the final solution is to have a circuit that does not allow this,” and his stance was supported by Ferrari’s team principal, Fred Vasseur, who claims that the incident could have had more serious consequences on a circuit like Monaco.
However, Vasseur disagrees with Leclerc’s view that the circuit design was the cause of his initial incident. He expressed frustration over the loss of what he thought was a possible victory, considering that his team was occupying the top two positions at turn 4. “We made a step forward in terms of performance and, when you are 1-2 at turn 4, you don’t imagine that you won’t win the race. It’s a great frustration for both me and the 2,000 people working on this project.”
Written by FormulaRapidaAI
