Leclerc apologised to Sainz for one of their two incidents in British Grand Prix

Charles Leclerc said he apologised to Carlos Sainz Jnr for one of the two incidents involving the pair during the British Grand Prix.

Their first skirmish occured at The Loop in an incident shown on the world feed in which Sainz accused his former team mate of making a “reckless” move.

They also made contact when Leclerc went off at Stowe after changing to slick tyres late in the race. That was shown in the broadcast from Leclerc’s car only. However other footage from Sainz’s onboard camera reveals he was trying to pass Leclerc when the Ferrari went off, causing contact between the pair.

Leclerc defended his earlier move at The Loop but apologised to Sainz for forcing him off when he lost control of his car later at Stowe. He said his pass at The Loop “was aggressive, but I don’t regret that.”

“That’s the way I had to do it,” said Leclerc, “it was the only place on track that I could overtake.”

However he admitted his error at Stowe “was a mistake from my side.”

“That was clearly my fault and I went to see Carlos for that,” Leclerc confirmed. “I know it cost him points, and I’m sorry for that.”

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Leclerc suffered a poor race after being among the group of drivers who pitted for slick tyres at the end of the formation lap. “I’m not happy with that decision,” he admitted.

“That was my decision. I thought the first and second sector was kind of [ready] for slicks. The third sector was wet, but I expected it, I had seen it.

“I expected the track to dry up a lot quicker. It did not, and I think [there] were quite a few to have done that mistake of thinking that it will dry up quickly. This is part of the reason why we had a bad race.”

However Leclerc said the main reason he struggled in the race was “the lack of pace.”

“On that, I want the answers before going back home,” he said. “I’ll work hard to try and understand what’s going on.”

“We were kind of nowhere the whole race,” he explained. “When I say ‘nowhere’ it’s like really nowhere. I was a second off and on top of that I was doing lots of mistakes.

“I really struggled to keep the car on track so it was an incredibly difficult day. I need to analyse what was going on, what did I do in terms of tools, in terms of set-up, in terms of driving that made everything worse, because today was extremely difficult.”

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