During the last laps of the the final laps of the 2022 Formula 1 Sao Paulo Grand Prix at the Autódromo José Carlos Pace, Scuderia Ferrari Monegasque driver Charles Leclerc was on the team radio several times asking the Maranello team to allow him to overtake his teammate Carlos Sainz.
Charles Leclerc was running in third place behind his Maranello teammate in the final part of the Brazilian Grand Prix after a great recovery drive following a crash with the McLaren of Lando Norris, as the Monegasque badly wanted those extra three points for third place, which would have given him a better chance of taking second place in the Drivers ‘championship against Sergio Perez, who finished seventh after Max Verstappen refused to give back his position.
However to Charles Leclerc’s disappointment, Ferrari chose not to give any team orders and end the race with Carlos Sainz in third place ahead of the Monegasque driver, as the Spaniard confirmed he wasn’t even aware of what his team mate was requesting.
“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.” – Charles Leclerc said, at the end of the Sao Paulo Grand Prix – “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. I just hope we will be lacking that second place for three points or something like that”. – he added.
Scuderia Ferrari boss Mattia Binotto provided more details about why the Italian side opted not to change the positions of its drivers. The Ferrari team principal pointed out that the race stewards were investigating for a potential incident involving Carlos Sainz and they did not want to risk losing even more time in case the Spaniard would have received a time penalty at the end of the race at Interlagos.
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The moment was related to Yuki Tsunoda and was created by oversight from the FIA, which forgot to inform the Japanese racing driver to overtake cars and rejoin the lead lap during the last Safety Car period, as pointed out by Mattia Binotto. The FIA then confirmed this information.
One other key issue for which Ferrari had to refuse Charles Leclerc’s request to be let past Carlos Sainz was the fact that Fernando Alonso and Max Verstappen were right behind the Monegasque driver, with the Alpine of Fernando Alonso even running on much newer tyres, which meant Ferrari did not want to take the risk of losing points in the Constructors standings, especially taking into consideration Mercedes’ one-two finish.
“Swapping the two cars on the last straight was certainly tricky because Charles had got Fernando and Max just behind,” he explained. “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.” – Scuderia Ferrari boss Mattia Binotto at the end of the Interlagos event.
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