Max Verstappen and Charles Leclerc collided at high speed on the home straight, but the stewards did not impose a penalty
Before Max Verstappen had his major meltdown, there was an extremely dangerous incident on the start/finish line. At full speed, the world champion and Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc made contact, which fortunately ended without serious consequences. “Charles just rammed me on the straight,” Verstappen radioed to his team.
The Red Bull driver almost lost control of his car at the restart after the safety car phase. On his hard tires, he had a moment of panic in the last corner, which Leclerc tried to take advantage of by immediately pulling up alongside Verstappen. The maneuver resulted in a slight contact between the tires and the chassis.
“To be honest, I don’t know what happened there,” Verstappen described the scene from his perspective. “It was really strange. The move was almost complete, and suddenly he pulled to the left—that could have ended badly. Really strange. I don’t know what was going on.”
Red Bull team boss Christian Horner thought Leclerc had pulled to the left, which is why the stewards investigated the incident. However, they did not impose a penalty on either driver.
“Car 1 lost traction in turn 14 and therefore had to defend its position against car 16,” the stewards said in their description. “Car 16 then attempted to overtake on the start-finish straight. Both cars moved slightly towards each other, resulting in a slight contact.”
“Both drivers believed that this was an avoidable collision that could have potentially led to a serious accident, but neither driver was solely or predominantly at fault. Under these circumstances, no further action was taken.”
Leclerc: “Max wanted to push me inside”
Leclerc himself defended his maneuver: “Max wanted to push me inside, where all the rubber is, and I didn’t want to go too far there. So I tried to push him to the left,” said the Monegasque driver. In addition, both had tried to catch the slipstream of the McLaren in front of them. “There was a slight contact, but fortunately without consequences.”
The Ferrari driver can understand why Verstappen complained over the radio: “If it had been the other way around, I probably would have radioed in too – after all, you’re fighting for third place,” he said. “Everyone tries everything to get their position back. And I think he knew it would be difficult with his tires on the track.”
“I overtook on the inside, he pushed me onto the dirty side, but I was faster because of his mistake. Then I wanted to get slipstream from the McLaren, pulled slightly to the left, he didn’t want to move at all – there was a little contact, but nothing special.”
Max on hards: Leclerc waited for his chance
Ferrari team boss Frederic Vasseur says the team didn’t even notice the contact at first. After analyzing the footage, he saw that Leclerc’s steering wheel position was “at zero.” “It wasn’t an incident,” he dismisses.
“I understand that they are upset after the last two or three laps, but it had nothing to do with Charles.”
In the end, the maneuver earned Leclerc a podium finish, for which he can thank Red Bull for their strategic decision to give Verstappen hard tires for the final laps.
“When the engineers told me that Max was on fresh hards in the last stint – I don’t know if they had a choice – I was pretty optimistic because I knew how bad the hard is,” he said.
“I knew I needed a good restart, and maybe a chance would come up – and it did.”
