MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — Charles Leclerc said he “felt a bit like a passenger” when he crashed his Ferrari SF-25 on his way to the grid ahead of Saturday’s Sprint race in Miami.
Formula 1 drivers exited the pitlane and made their way around the Miami International Autodrome under heavy rain. Leclerc lost control of the car in the left-hand kink Turn 10 section, sending him heavily into the wall and ending his race before it had even begun.
“It’s frustrating, but at the end of the day, I can only blame myself for it,” the 27-year-old Monegasque told Sky Sports. “Going out with [intermediate tires] in those conditions was probably not the best choice, but on the other hand, these things shouldn’t happen.
“I felt a bit like a passenger because it’s in a straight line and it’s not like you are pushing in a straight line, so I was just cruising until I completely lost control of the car because of the aquaplaning and I had no way out of it so…”
“Very disappointed is the way it is. Now I need to move on because there is qualifying in a few hours, which I hope I’ll be able to take part of, and if I do, then I hope we can recover from a difficult beginning of the day.”
Soon after footage appeared of Leclerc in the wall, a radio message from Ferrari teammate Lewis Hamilton was aired on the broadcast: “I don’t know how you put us out on inters here.”
Yet Hamilton would go some way toward salvaging Ferrari’s Saturday once the Sprint got underway. Starting from seventh on the grid, the 40-year-old Briton had moved up to sixth thanks to Leclerc’s exit, before an early change to slick tires on a drying track saw him climb up to third by the time he took the checkered flag.
And yet his surprising Saturday success very nearly didn’t happen. Speaking in the post-Sprint news conference, Hamilton told members of the media that he very nearly followed Leclerc into the wall on his sighting lap.
“When we all went out for the [sighting] lap, I don’t know how it was, but obviously Charles had that moment,” Hamilton said. “I had exactly the same moment because I was right behind him and somehow [the car] just stopped going towards the wall right at the last moment. So that was nearly both of us out. So as I said, to come from that to then get these points, I’m really grateful.”
The seven-time world champion’s Sprint podium saw him move within one point of Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Hamilton’s heir at Mercedes, in sixth in the drivers’ championship. Leclerc sits in fifth in the standings, ten points clear of his teammate.
Source: espn.com