Charles Leclerc Faces Brutal Bashing as Opening Lap Battle With Carlos Sainz Earns Fury of Spanish Media

Will the 2024 season destroy the relationship between Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz? The two Ferrari drivers are known to be good friends and have a lot of respect for each other. However, the Chinese Grand Prix weekend gave us glimpses of the beginning of the end of their friendship. And the Spanish newspaper, Marca, didn’t mince any words in defending their local hero while putting the blame on Leclerc for the opening lap battle.

Carlos Sainz is in his final season with Ferrari and is currently looking for a race seat for 2025. And therefore, he has to be a bit aggressive and try to beat his teammate to put himself in the best possible shopping window. Up until the Chinese GP weekend, Sainz and Leclerc had been racing each other hard but fair.

However, the first sign of trouble came in the Chinese Sprint Race, when Charles Leclerc blamed Sainz for going over the limit and pushing him off track while defending his position. After the Sprint, the Monegasque driver said that he needed to talk to Sainz to calm things down. However, things didn’t look quite as calm on Sunday.

Starting from P6 and P7 respectively, the Ferrari drivers battled for position in the opening lap of the race when the #16 driver pushed Sainz wide into Turn 1 to defend his position. And that’s something the Spanish media didn’t like at all. Marca newspaper wrote about the incident as they blamed Leclerc for intentionally running his teammate wide.

Here’s what the report read, “Leclerc looked in the mirrors and then traveled 15 meters with his car, unnaturally extending the trajectory into Turn 1, with the sole objective of covering the arrival of Sainz, who started better than him. That strange movement, perfectly visible from the onboard cameras, cost them both the overtaking of Russell and Hulkenberg and, most likely, the podium for one of the two reds.”

“After three races behind Sainz, Charles preferred to cover his teammate rather than look for the best position at the start, which is reflected in the images. First look and then get closer, even if you have no impediment in front of you to follow the natural path. He achieved his goal of forcing Sainz to leave the track to avoid touching himself,” the report further said. [Translated by Google]

While intense battles between teammates are not uncommon in Formula 1, more often than not, it ends up hurting both drivers in the long run.

Carlos Sainz admits to playing catch-up after losing positions at the start

Whether Leclerc’s move on lap 1 was payback for how Carlos Sainz defended in the Sprint race is unclear. But it did end up costing both of them positions unlike in the Sprint. While they did ultimately recover those positions, Sainz was not happy with the situation when he spoke to the media after the race.

“I’d prefer not to comment, but it’s obviously quite clear that it cost us both positions,” Sainz told the media. “So yeah, it didn’t help either of us… From there on, we were just playing catch-up. We had to box very early for the hard. Then we had to one-stop from Lap 18 or something like this, which went forever on the hard tire, which we were never gonna go much more forward.”

With tensions running high during each race weekend, do you think things will keep getting worse between the two Ferrari drivers as the season goes on?