Charles Leclerc’s shocking riding mistake? It’s not fair to blame him now, defends Ferrari boss Mattia Binotto

The French Grand Prix produced an absolutely shocking moment when Charles Leclerc crashed in Turn 1 on lap 18. The Ferrari driver probably cost himself the win with this driving error, but Ferrari boss Mattia Binotto is defending his driver.

The 24-year-old Monegasque was in first place on lap 18 of the French Grand Prix. According to the available data, the Ferrari cars also performed slightly better on the tyres than Verstappen’s Red Bull, which was in second place.

Even so, Max Verstappen was pulling Leclerc back during laps 13, 14 and 15, whereupon Red Bull realised that if Ferrari decided to keep their driver on track, the right thing to do was to call Verstappen into the pits.

Red Bull then attempted an ‘undercut’ on lap 16, with Ferrari actually making another strange decision to leave Leclerc on track with an increasingly slower pace and worn tyres.

The Italian team said afterwards that it was worried about its “track position” and therefore that an earlier stop would see Leclerc lose the lead in the race. However, based on telemetry data, Leclerc’s pace was gradually dropping due to tyre degradation.

This left Ferrari with a moment when Leclerc should have pitted. By leaving his driver on track, the Italian team lost further time on the worn tyres.

Verstappen would therefore almost certainly have been undercut thanks to the reduced gap to race leader Leclerc, the Ferrari driver still trying to make up the lost time on track. However, due to tyre wear, his efforts were beyond his capabilities, and so on lap 18 came that incriminating moment.

During the French Grand Prix, Leclerc then admitted that his accident was not due to a technical fault, but a simple driver error. Leclerc also said that he did not deserve to win the championship with such a performance.

Leclerc, however, is being defended by Binotto, the Ferrari boss. “I think it’s an unfair judgement. I’m sure he was driving at the limit and these things happen in these cases,” said Binotto, quoted by Motorsport.

“We are taking time to discuss this with him and see if we can find anything else in the data. But there is no reason to blame him at the moment, ” Binotto continued.

“I’m sure he will learn from this. We’ve always seen that Charles reacts very strongly when he makes a mistake. And I am quite sure he will return to Hungary hungry and stronger,” he concluded.

F1, Motorsport