BARCELONA, Spain – Charles Leclerc felt Ferrari teammate Carlos Sainz was trying to do “something a bit spectacular” to impress interested teams and his home crowd when they clashed at the Spanish Grand Prix.
Sainz passed Leclerc around the outside of the first corner at the start of the third lap of the race.
As they hit the apex, Leclerc’s front wing clipped Sainz’s right rear tyre.
Leclerc felt like his teammate had gone against the approach the team agreed on before the race.
“We had a clear strategy at the beginning of the race with the team to both save tyres to attack late on,” he said. “Carlos on that lap didn’t do any saving in Turn 14 of course had an opportunity to overtake in Turn One, which is a bit of a shame because we lost time between us.
“I damaged my front wing because of Carlos didn’t see that I was in the inside and that makes our race more difficult.”