Double points finish for Ferrari despite Leclerc’s lap-one clash
Ferrari recovered to a double points finish in the Styrian GP despite Charles Leclerc’s first-lap clash with Pierre Gasly, which ended the Alphatauri driver’s race.
Leclerc led Ferrari’s efforts in qualifying, taking seventh on the grid as Carlos Sainz Jr was knocked out in Q2, but clashed with Gasly as they went side by side up to Turn 3 on the opening lap. Leclerc clipped Gasly’s rear-left tyre with his front wing, but the stewards deemed it to be a racing incident.
After pitting for a new front wing and a set of hard tyres, Leclerc fought back up the order before a switch to the mediums allowed him to battle past the one-stopping midfield runners and finish seventh.
“We’ve been incredibly quick, but obviously this first lap basically stopped us from doing something much better,” Leclerc said. “The pace was incredible. It’s probably one of my best performances in Formula 1 – apart from lap one.”
Sainz produced a less eventful but equally impressive recovery in the sister Ferrari, running long on the mediums to overcut Yuki Tsunoda and Fernando Alonso, before passing Lance Stroll for sixth after leaving the pits.
But a hopeful late pursuit of fifthplaced Lando Norris was stunted as
Sainz was stuck before he could unlap himself from Lewis Hamilton. “I doubted for five, 10 laps whether to follow him,” Sainz explained. “By the time I unlapped myself, it was too late to go and catch Lando. [It cost] at least a good fight.”
Gasly was much less fortunate than Leclerc in the first-lap incident, with the resulting puncture leaving him struggling to stay in control of his car at Turn 3. After further contact with Antonio Giovinazzi and Nicholas Latifi, he dragged his car back to the pits on three wheels but was forced to retire with broken left-rear suspension.
“I think he wanted to take the slipstream, misjudged probably, and came behind me a bit too early, and touched the rear tyre,” Gasly said of Leclerc. “I know it wasn’t done on purpose, but it just sucks that this happened.”