Ferrari boss, Fred Vasseur has played down what appears to be increasing frustration between his drivers after Charles Leclerc branded a move by his teammate as "unnecessary".

At the start of Lap 3, Carlos Sainz made a determined move on his teammate as they headed into Turn 1, and in the process the rear right of the Spaniard's car touched Leclerc's front wing.

"He closed on me, Carlos," said Leclerc.

"He touched me," said Sainz. "We collided, he pushed me off," he added. "He touched my rear-right, so I was clearly ahead."

Adding to his frustration at losing the position to his teammate was Leclerc's claim that ahead of the race the drivers had agreed to a pre-arranged strategy in order to save their tyres.

"We had a clear strategy at the beginning of the race with both to save tyres to attack later on," said the Monegasque at race end. "Carlos didn't do any saving in Turn 14 and of course had an opportunity to overtake me in Turn 1, which is a bit of a shame because we lost time between us.

"I damaged my front wing because of Carlos making the turn and not seeing I was inside and that made our race more difficult," he added. "I didn't understand the point of doing that when it was clearly stated before the race that we had to save in this part of the race.

"It's a bit unnecessary," he sighed, "but I also understand that it's his home race and it's also an important moment of his career so I guess he wanted to do something a bit spectacular. But I probably wasn't the right person to do that with."

"It's too many times that he complains after the race about something," countered the Spaniard. "He's obviously hot, he might think that, at this point of the season, I don't know.

"I was on the attack," he added. "We were on a new soft, Mercedes were on a used soft, and we had to go on the attack in the first laps when you have a new tyre, try to pass them. Like we said even before the race.

"I pass Charles because... I don't know if he did a mistake or managing too much. I nearly passed Lewis, undercut Lewis, I nearly passed Russell in the pit stop. I was trying out what I have to try out there as a driver.

"He elected to manage more, in the end, it kind of paid as he beat me at the end on a soft-medium-soft. For me, I elected to be aggressive soft-medium-hard and it didn't pay off. I think George and I on the hards were too slow while the guys on soft were very quick."

While a significant improvement on its Montreal misery, Ferrari was expecting more this weekend having pushed forward its upgrade programme in time for the race.

However, despite the various new parts, Sainz admits that the SF-24 simply didn't have the pace of its rivals.

"There was no way to fight for that podium," he said, "but clearly the call of stopping early and going the undercut route... anyway a medium-hard today didn't pay off. These tyres were just too slow today, and everyone else that went on the soft, medium, soft, were clearly faster. It just didn't pay off.

"In the race I think I mirrored a bit what Russell did and I was a tenth or two slower," he added. "Charles mirrored what Hamilton did and was one or two tenths slower. Then obviously, Red Bull and McLaren are a clear step ahead. So yeah, not our best weekend."

Following Leclerc's claim that damage incurred in the clash with his teammate had cost him time, Fred Vasseur told Sky Sports: "You can find ten examples of ten circumstances in the race where we missed half a second or others that were after when Carlos let him go also later on.

"We missed a couple of tenths during two or three laps," he added. "Let us discuss and not to draw a conclusion after the first comment of the driver when he jumped out of the car."

Asked about the Monegasque's claim of a pre-race agreement, the Frenchman replied: "We don't speak like this about the strategy of the race. But we knew before that if you have a look on all the races in Barcelona for 25 years now, the first stint is a bit boring. It's more to take position on track.

"And then when you start the pit stop to have still potential into the tyre to push. And it was more the approach, but it's not that don't push turn one, don't push turn two."

Asked if he was concerned at increasing tension between the pair, Vasseur said: "No, out of the car they have a very good relationship and good mutual trust.

"They are racers, for sure you can have this kind of case. But I know also perfectly that from this emulation we are getting a lot. Last year, if we recover, it's also because you had this emulation between them and this competition all over the season.

"And it's not just we have the cons, sometimes what happened today, but it's not the match on the car was nothing. And it's part of the game."

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