Whatever way you look at it, Ferrari threw away at least 22 points yesterday, and it was only Alex Albon's elimination that prevented Red Bull further closing the gap in the team standings.

On fresher rubber, having passed Sebastian Vettel in Turn 1 at the start of lap 66, the German, courtesy of a tow and DRS, re-passed Charles Leclerc on the back straight. However, in the process the left-rear of Vettel's car touched the right-front of the Frenchman's causing both drivers to be eliminated on the spot and the deployment safety car that was to haunt Lewis Hamilton.

While both drivers immediately turned the airwaves blue with their accusations, they were instructed by the team not to discuss the incident with the media, and certainly not to apportion blame.

However, in the wake of yet another needless, costly incident involving the feuding pair, Binotto admits that he will be talking to both drivers back at the team's Maranello HQ over the next few days.

"I've not reviewed the incident and I don't want to do it today," the Italian told reporters. "I think that when doing things in the heat of the moment, you can come to the wrong conclusions.

"I heard from both drivers," he continued, "but we will meet again together with them to discuss what happened today and there will be time for the team to analyse all the video and the data.

"Whatever will be the judgement, more important today is that we are disappointed and sorry for the team," he admitted. "First and foremost, the two drivers should be sorry for the team.

"It is true it has been a very small crash with a big consequence, but still that sort of thing should not happen. The fact that it happened today, I would say it is even lucky it happened this season because there will be opportunities to clarify, in view of next year, what is not allowed to happen. So I'm happy to take this opportunity of what happened, to clarify for the future. Certainly we need to improve that for the future and that is not to happen anymore."

In view of previous squabbles between the pair, when asked if the team had been wrong in not acting sooner in terms of team orders, especially when racing one another, he said: "It's not a matter of fining them or blaming them. I think that today they were free to fight, we let them race and the reason for that is that we have the second place in the constructors' sewn up, so they were only battling for their position in the drivers' championship.

"But free to fight does not mean to do silly actions, especially between the two teammates and the two Ferraris. For me today, it was simply a silly action."

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READERS COMMENTS

1. Posted by mickl, 20/11/2019 19:57

"Well, Seb will still be getting this Xmas txt from Kimi "I'm still the last Ferrari world champion...""

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2. Posted by Tom2681, 19/11/2019 16:36

"If it hadn't been a red-on-red crime, one has to wonder whether Seb might have been banned for the last race of the season. After all he was one incident away from a race ban.
Maybe that would have taught him some thing. It's never too late to learn."

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3. Posted by Wokingchap, 18/11/2019 17:16

"Binotto doesn't need to review the incident, it was blatantly clear to all viewers what the German did... he does it far too often......unfortunately."

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Binotto to discuss "silly action" with Vettel and Leclerc

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