Charles Leclerc says Kimi Antonelli should have shared the same blame for the initial contact with Oscar Piastri that saw the Ferrari driver pulled from the Sao Paulo Grand Prix.
Piastri attempted to overtake Antonelli on the inside of Turn 1 after a safety car restart, with Leclerc on the outside in a three-wide moment as the trio battled for second place. Leclerc stayed wide but Antonelli and Piastri came together on the entry of the corner, with the stewards giving Piastri a 10-second penalty and ruling that the Australian was “fully responsible” for the incident.
“I watched it from a distance, from where I sat in the grass and looked at the big screen,” said Leclerc. “It’s a shame. Collateral damage from an incident between Oscar and Kimi, where in my opinion Kimi was actually as much to blame as Oscar.”
“For me it’s a bit of a 50-50 incident, with Oscar being optimistic and Kimi taking the corner as if Oscar was never there. And that means they crashed into me and hit me. Very frustrating considering we’re fighting for second place in the Constructors’ Championship and we’re the only ones not finishing the race. So it’s going to be very difficult to get that second place now.”
With Lewis Hamilton also withdrawn from the race at Interlagos due to crash damage sustained in two separate incidents, Ferrari now sits fourth in the Constructors’ Championship, 36 points behind second-place Mercedes.
“It’s a tough weekend, at least a tough Sunday,” said team boss Fred Vasseur. “I felt like we were in a good place with Charles. He had a good start, a good restart, he took margin on the [outside] and we will pay the full price of the crash between Antonelli and Piastri.
“I don’t care who is to blame between Piastri and Antonelli, but it certainly wasn’t Charles! And it’s tough because in this fight you can’t give up points. If you give up points, you also give points to the others. It’s the double punishment and in our case it’s very tough.”
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