09/11/2021
NEWS STORY
Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz have dismissed talk of bad feeling after the Monegasque was ordered to yield to his teammate on Sunday.
Though he qualified ahead of his teammate, the chaos at Turn 1 saw Sainz drop to seventh while Leclerc moved up to fifth.
Passing Alfa Romeo's Antonio Giovinazzi on lap 5, the Spaniard slotted in behind his Ferrari teammate as the pair pursued Pierre Gasly.
While Leclerc pitted on lap 30, it was a further twelve laps before Sainz made his stop, rejoining the race in sixth behind the Monegasque.
Ferrari subsequently called on Leclerc to yield to his teammate, feeling that on fresher rubber the Spaniard would be better equipped to hunt down the AlphaTauri ahead.
As Leclerc held station, Sainz complained that he was being held up, and at one stage suggested Leclerc was deliberately making mistakes in order to keep him behind.
Eventually Leclerc deferred, but, unable to make a move on Gasly, Sainz handed the position back to his Ferrari teammate with two laps remaining.
"It was already discussed before," said Leclerc, when asked about the order from the pit-wall, "so there was just one lap where they asked me to let him by but I was overtaking, I think, a blue flag car in front of me, so I didn't do it that lap.
"Then, the next lap, I was asked to not do it anymore and then we did do it a bit later on," he added. "But overall everything was clear and as soon as I've been asked, I did it.
"We stopped very early to try and put some pressure on Pierre in front for him to stop and let Carlos go long, to create a tyre delta as well for the end of the race," said the youngster. "Everything worked pretty well but once we went on the hard, on my side I struggled massively, Carlos a little bit less.
"But still we didn't have the pace of Pierre in front," he admitted, "so we didn't quite make it, but I think today it shows the good team spirit there is and yes, that's good to see. We maximised everything to day, I think."
"We put together probably one of my best races of the season in terms of pure pace, with an unlucky bit at the start, but today we were really quick," said Sainz.
"The two crashes were just in front of me and I had to take avoiding action which made me lose positions that I shouldn't have lost," he added, "but that's how it goes sometimes in racing.
"From there on we put our head down, we showed the pace that we've shown all weekend, we were really quick," he continued. "I managed to get the team order to go past Charles and then try and catch Gasly, but Gasly was very strong this weekend and we couldn't make it stick."