Ferrari could be heading for a civil war between Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz after it emerged there is tension between the two drivers following the outcome of the Australian Grand Prix. Reports suggest the Monegasque was ‘unhappy’ with his team-mate’s conduct in qualifying and it has added to the frosty relations between the pair, with team principal Fred Vasseur facing a potential intervention to cool the war of words.
Leclerc, who finished second in the Drivers’ Championship last season, has long been viewed as the lead driver of the team despite Sainz finishing ahead of him in the 2021 season. And it appears all is not well with the 25-year-old after complaining about Sainz’s failure to help him find more pace in Melbourne.
The majority of F1 teams instruct their drivers to take it in turns in giving each other a tow, which sees a driver pull a few seconds ahead to allow him to gain an aerodynamic advantage from the slipstream.
But when it was Sainz’s turn, Leclerc was clearly unhappy with his efforts to return the favour and made a sarcastic comment on the team radio about the Spaniard’s help – or apparent lack of it. “Big thanks to Carlos for the tow,” Leclerc said. “Got a bit of speed there, always nice.”
F1 pundit Peter Windsor, a former Williams and Ferrari team manager, was surprised by Leclerc’s tetchy response and called the driver “naïve” for thinking Sainz, 28, would step aside for him after claiming he was “unhappy” with the tow incident.
Speaking via his YouTube channel, he said: “I thought it was odd that he made that public, that he was upset about that, because you’ve got to live in your own world and you’ve got to be very cocooned when you’re at Ferrari. You’ve got your guys and and you’ve got to work in a very apolitical way, so it was quite a political reaction I think he had to it all.
“To me, even if Charles felt that Carlos was in a position to help him, I think it’s quite naïve of him to think that Carlos would. Why would Carlos Sainz help Charles Leclerc any more than Charles would help Carlos really?
“Maybe he would because he doesn’t really ever see Carlos as a true threat, but Carlos Sainz has just come off a very good Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.
He later added: “I think, partly because of that, he [Leclerc] didn’t qualify well and he had a terrible race. We all know what happened in the race and that’s part of not qualifying well.”
Leclerc’s relationship with the team has been strained in recent times after the departure of some key mechanics and previous boss Mattia Binotto.
He has taken only six points from his first three races, while Sainz has 20 to his name even after being demoted to 12th in Melbourne from fourth place.
But Leclerc denied there were problems behind the scenes after Ferrari held a team meeting at their base Maranello.
Speaking in March, he said: “Everyone is fully on it and fully positive still, which is great. We all need to push in the same direction as I said this is the most important.
“There have been loads of rumours around the team – which, for once, 90 per cent of them were completely unfounded.
“I don’t know from where it is coming from and to be honest I don’t want to even spend any energy on trying to find from where it’s coming from. We just need to be on it and focus on ourselves.”
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