Heart and anger
Charles Leclerc had promised a “race of heart” before the start of the Emilia Romagna GP, after a disastrous qualifying session the day before, and he kept his promise. The Ferrari driver gave his all to climb up the order and deserved even more than the sixth place he achieved starting from 11th on the grid.
However, all events turned against the #16 Ferrari, penalized by the Virtual and Safety Car periods that limited the potential of a strategy that could have brought him as high as fourth place, a position instead taken by his teammate Lewis Hamilton. But Leclerc, who in the final stages of the race faced attacks from rivals with much fresher tires, also had to deal with another controversial episode: his duel with Alex Albon.
The talent from the Principality tried every way to ‘widen his elbows’, defending his position to the limit against the Thai Williams driver’s attacks, also helping Lewis Hamilton’s Ferrari behind them to catch up. On lap 60, Albon attempted yet another attack at Tamburello, and Charles Leclerc pushed him wide strongly but kept his SF-25 within track limits. The #23 Williams ended up in the gravel but continued, only to be overtaken shortly after by Hamilton’s Ferrari.
On the following lap, positions between the two Ferrari cars swapped, and Charles Leclerc again had to defend from Alex Albon, repelling another attack at Tamburello. Meanwhile, the stewards started monitoring Charles Leclerc’s earlier defensive move that forced Albon into the gravel, alerting the Ferrari pit wall to the risk of a five-second penalty that could have dropped Leclerc down to ninth place.
Position swap
For safety, Charles Leclerc was ordered over the radio to let Alex Albon pass and ‘settle’ for P6. The Ferrari driver complied but did not hide his frustration on the team radio towards the stewards: “This is how racing is now,” Leclerc vented. “When you can’t pass, you have to let them pass. This is a damn joke. What did I do wrong?”
New document: Doc 43 – Decision – Car 16 – Alleged forcing another driver off the track
Published on 18.05.25 17:33 CEThttps://t.co/u4MwpmgFmg#F1 #Formula1 #FIA #ItalianGP 🇮🇹 pic.twitter.com/6siLxNUzaS— FIA F1 Documents Bot (@fiadocsbot) May 18, 2025
After the race, the stewards issued a statement closing the investigation on the incident, explaining that Leclerc’s letting Alex Albon pass was a “mitigating circumstance.” It’s easy to imagine that if the position swap had not happened, the Monegasque would indeed have received the usual 5-second penalty in such cases.
However, after the checkered flag, Leclerc still had something to say to his team, as shown by the final exchange with his race engineer Bryan Bozzi, which we report below:
Leclerc: “Now explain to me why the penalty or whatever it was. At least we’ll know in the end.”
Bozzi: “We don’t know yet. We’re under investigation.”
Leclerc: “What do you mean? Didn’t you tell me to let him pass?”
Bozzi: “I only told you what I was told.”
