Ferrari Team Principal Mattia Binotto says the team forgot to tell Charles Leclerc about Sebastian Vettel’s time penalty, accepting that it was a mistake.
Vettel led Lewis Hamilton at Formula 1’s Canadian Grand Prix but was issued with a five-second time penalty after he was judged to have re-joined unsafely and forced Hamilton to take evasive action after running wide at Turn 4 on lap 48 of 70.
Notification of the penalty for Vettel came on lap 57, at which point Leclerc – who stopped later than the leaders – had begun closing in on the duo up front.
Once Vettel’s time penalty was added he had just 1.038s on his team-mate, who revealed post-race that he had not been told about the situation.
“It was a mistake from our side,” accepted Binotto.
“We are very busy on the pit wall. We forgot. We should have done it but we didn’t.”
Binotto also backed Vettel’s stance on the penalty, with Ferrari having lodged a notification of its intention to appeal the offence.
“Obviously it is not down to us to decide as there are people there to decide which counts as their decision but certainly we are not happy and disagree,” said Binotto.
“From our perspective he could not have done anything else compared to what he did and I think he was lucky to remain on track.
“He had no intention to what he did, he was still ahead and tried to keep his position on track. It is as simple as that. We disagree with the decision, no doubt, but all of us have our own opinion.
“We are really disappointed with what happened and I think there has been really similar situations in the past which have not been judged as today.”
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