SHANGHAI, China — Charles Leclerc has explained the background to his now-viral radio message with his Ferrari race engineer Bryan Bozzi at the Australian Grand Prix, describing it as an inside joke.
Leclerc informed the pit wall of water in his cockpit midway through the race last Sunday, resulting in a comical exchange over team radio.
Leclerc: “Is there a leakage?”
Bozzi: “A leakage where?”
Leclerc: “I have the seat full of water.”
Bozzi: “Must be the water.”
Leclerc: “Let’s add that to the words of wisdom.”
The radio conversation was shared by fans across social media during and after the race, leading to a series of memes poking fun at Bozzi’s response.
Asked about the messages ahead of this weekend’s Chinese Grand Prix, Leclerc confirmed his drinks bottle was the cause of the leak and that there was a private joke at play.
“It was an inside joke, but obviously nobody could understand it from outside,” Leclerc said. “It’s something with my engineer, but we understood from where it was coming from.
“It was coming from the drink [bottle], so obviously I had zero drink, and I was wet, but that’s fine.”
Leclerc finished the Australian Grand Prix in eighth place after qualifying seventh, while teammate Lewis Hamilton qualified eighth and finished tenth.
Leclerc believes McLaren — which won the opening race — is the team to beat, but remains confident Ferrari did not show its true performance in Australia and is in the chasing pack with Red Bull and Mercedes.
“McLaren are definitely ahead, they are definitely ahead,” he said. “I think in qualifying the gap that there was is more or less what there is — apart from for us where we were a lot behind.
“I think we are around Mercedes and Red Bull in terms of lap times if we put everything together. So there’s still a big chance to catch McLaren then.”
Source: espn.com