Leclerc frustrated, but Ferrari defends team order rebuff

Ferrari says that swapping its drivers in the closing stages of the Brazilian Grand Prix at the request of Charles Leclerc was deemed "too risky" as the team was being investigated for a potential incident involving Carlos Sainz.

Leclerc's request for Sainz to hand over third place to help the former's chances of finishing runner-up in the championship came through the air waves multiple times.

Eventually, the Ferrari pitwall responded to its driver, telling Leclerc that there would be no change of positions as it was "too risky".

Leclerc was initially frustrated with the decision and its reason, telling his race engineer "good joke" over the radio.

But after the race, the Scuderia charger admitted that it was a "heat of the moment" response based on what had theoretically been decided beforehand with his team.

"Obviously, in the heat of the moment I wasn’t very happy, but for other reasons obviously," he hinted.

“I don’t normally ask these type of things, but obviously we had this discussion prior to the race. So that’s why I asked about it.

"But for some reason we changed our mind on that. I don’t know yet the reason and hopefully we will be quick enough in Abu Dhabi to get that second place."

Regarding the reasons for Ferrari rejecting its drivers call, Scuderia boss Mattia Binotto alluded to an incident involving AlphaTauri's Yuki Tsunoda who was out of position ahead of the final safety car restart, and wasn't allowed to overlap himself due to an oversight by race control.

But Ferrari also judged that swapping its drivers on the main straight would have been a risky proposition given that Fernando Alonso and Max Verstappen were running right behind Leclerc.

"Swapping the two cars on the last straight was certainly tricky because Charles had got Fernando and Max just behind," said Binotto. "So certainly it could have been tricky and somehow dangerous.

"But more than that, we knew that we were under investigation for what happened behind Safety Car with Tsunoda.

"We were cleared off by race control at the time so we were quite, let me say, comfortable, but without having a conclusion on that matter it would have been risky.

"A five-second penalty, for example, would mean that Carlos would have been losing more than one position. So for the constructors championship it was certainly better to stick with the positions and the gaps on track."

Overall, Leclerc was perhaps lucky to finish his race, let alone in fourth position, given how hard he had hit the wall after tangling with McLaren's Lando Norris on the first restart.

At first glance, the Monegasque's afternoon looked all done, but there was miraculously minimal damage to his F1-75 which allowed him to charge from dead last to P4.

As for Norris, the stewards deemed the Briton responsible for the run-in and hit the McLaren driver with a five-second penalty.

"I thought I had left the space," Leclerc said, commenting on the incident. "Well, I’m pretty sure I left the space.

"I think he lost the rear and then touched me. So yeah, it’s a shame. But then after that it was a good recovery but not enough to obviously challenge for better positions."

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