Charles Leclerc revealed about healthy talks within the Scuderia Ferrari camp after the F1 Brazil GP clash with teammate Sebastian Vettel.
Following a disastrous crash involving both Ferrari teammates at the penultimate F1 race in Brazil, tensions were high at the Italian marque, and the inter-team relations were speculated to have been on edge, as the duo placed the blame on each other initially.
By the end of the weekend, things calmed down with a talk slated to happen at Maranello as per Mattia Binotto. Leclerc promised such incidents would not become commonplace, and assured people that the then-frosty environment would not boil over.
Two weeks since the incident, Leclerc reiterated his comments in Abu Dhabi GP as the young Monegasque confirmed that all was well again across the two Ferrari garages following discussions at Maranello with Vettel and Binotto.
“We looked at it and particularly I looked at it, obviously, to try to understand how we could have made the things better,” said Leclerc to media including FormulaRapida.net. “I think it was very unfortunate, first of all, because the touch was extremely small and it had a big drama after that, and that was a bit unlucky.
“But as a team we should probably be a bit less aggressive between each other, for these things not to happen again. For the team it’s not good. For everyone supporting us it’s not good, so we’ll try for it not to happen again. On this occasion we also took the day to discuss a little bit, and I’m pretty sure it won’t happen again.”
Elaborating more on the discussions, Leclerc said the talks were simple and both understood what needs to be done. There were no extreme penalties discussed as the youngster stated the clash won’t change Ferrari’s stance of close racing.
“We called with Seb and we tried to understand both of our situations,” said Leclerc. “I think probably Seb shouldn’t have gone to the left and he knows it and I probably could have done a better job of avoiding him going to the left. So yeah, both of us.
“We will be able to race together. Obviously, Seb and myself are very competitive, we both want to win, but we also need to find the right compromise. We are also racing for the same team. As I said earlier, we need to be less aggressive towards each other and give us a little bit more space for these things not to happen again.
“Of what I know, that’s the only thing that will happen for the next race. Apart from that, I don’t think there is much we can do. Obviously, as I said, the consequences were huge in the last race but if you look back at the contact, it was very, very small. It was unfortunate but we will make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
While Leclerc was able to give his side of things, Vettel missed the Thursday sessions as he postponed his arrival to Abu Dhabi due to the birth of his third child. His late arrival will put him back by a bit but thankfully he won’t miss any track running.
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The story was written by Duncan Leahy and edited by Darshan Chokhani