Ferrari boss Fred Vasseur said that an angry tirade over team radio from Charles Leclerc in the Formula 1 Las Vegas Grand Prix won’t be an issue.
Leclerc was aggravated after the second run of pit stops when Ferrari team-mate Carlos Sainz passed him, ignoring team orders.
“I did my job but being nice fucks me over all the fucking time, all the fucking time,” Leclerc fumed over team radio post-race.
“It’s not even being nice, it’s just being respectful.”
Naturally, Vasseur was questioned on the conflict post-race and Ferrari’s Team Principal told select media including Motorsport Week that discussions would be held.
“We have to avoid to fight but at this stage I think that opening the stint you have to be really on the management side,” Vassuer began.
“Carlos he was already Lap 3 or 4 of the stint but I think it’s more the fact that the situation was really difficult for everybody, we will discuss tonight it won’t be an issue.”
There was a flurry of confusion around Sainz’s second pit-stop, with him bailing from the entry to the pits at the end of Lap 28 when Ferrari wasn’t ready for the Spaniard.
This helped Leclerc attempt his short-lived overcut as he came out ahead of Sainz three laps later.
Sainz then, more than likely sought redemption in passing Leclerc after his pit stop gaff.
“We’ll have to discuss this because at this stage of the race that we were discussing with Carlos for the pit stop he was in the shadow of [Liam] Lawson, [Yuki] Tsunoda perhaps and he wanted to pit, we wanted to keep him on track,” Vasseur said.
“We were discussing like this and on the top we had to swap and it was a bit of the chaos but when they arrive in the car they have their own vision of this, but don’t worry we’ll discuss later today.”
Leclerc’s angry post-race Vegas rant in full
Leclerc’s post-race rant over team radio went beyond his no more Mister Nice Guy tirade.
After talking about being “respectful,” his frustrations continued to boil over.
“I know I need to shut up but at one point it’s always the same, so, oh my fucking god,” he said.
Leclerc’s race engineer replied by saying: “you did the right thing for the team and pick up please.”
Unaware his radio was still on, the still fuming Monegasque driver kept ranting.
“Yeah, yeah, fucking pick up what the fuck we want,” he said.
“Shit, shit, shit…and the radio is on. I’m sorry, that was on me.”
Tempers run high in an F1 cockpit and Leclerc and Sainz have been able to settle disputes before.
With two races left as Scuderia Ferrari team-mates, Vasseur will need to maintain harmony with his Ferrari stallions.
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