Ferrari Formula 1 driver Charles Leclerc says he’ll “choose his fights better” after his first lap accident in last weekend’s Sakhir GP earned a three-place grid penalty. Charles Leclerc initially hit Sergio Perez in an incident that put both himself and Max Verstappen out of the race, although the Racing Point driver was able to continue and eventually claim a sensational win.
Charles has been involved in several other first lap incidents this year, including one with teammate Sebastian Vettel in the Styrian GP, and another with Perez’s teammate Lance Stroll in Sochi.
Charles accepts the punishment for last weekend’s incident, but pointed out his first lap charges have often been fruitful this year.
“I think I didn’t give much choice to the stewards basically,” he said. “Because by not finishing the race, then well, I think I had to get a penalty somehow. And the only thing that was possible for them was to penalise me for the next race.
“It’s the way it is. And it’s like this, I think I’ve gained a lot in some of the races in the first lap, which helped me to gain a lot of points this year. And it happens that sometimes it just doesn’t go my way, which it didn’t last weekend. And it didn’t in Austria at the beginning of the year. But at the end, I’ve also gained a lot of points with that. And I’ll try to choose the fights better, because obviously gaining a position to Max was not going to bring us anywhere in a better position, because Max was anyway quicker than us. But anyway, it’s the past, I’ll learn from it. And that’s it.” – he concluded.
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