More trouble plagues the Monegasque driver as he receives a penalty that sends him down from third to sixth at his home race.
Photo credit: Scuderia Ferrari
After a difficult drive at today’s qualifying, Charles Leclerc managed to secure third position for tomorrow’s race. Post-race footage showed an incident in Monte Carlo’s tunnel where Charles looked to be impeding Lando Norris on a flying lap. This footage was noted by the stewards and investigations insued.
During the interviews, Lando Norris said that Leclerc should be disqualified, jokingly.
“There’s one rule, it’s just don’t slow down in the middle of the tunnel and that’s what he did.”
In an official statement, the stewards stated that they heard from both drivers, they agreed that there was not much that Leclerc could have done safely to avoid the fast Mclaren driver due to the light entering the tunnel, the shifting of the lines from one side to the other, and the difficulty in vision.
The Stewards noted that Leclerc responded rationally to a blue flag held up by the marshals, but it was already too late.However the Stewards noted that Ferrari did not alert him to Norris’ approach until he was already immediately behind him, according to the analysis of team radio.
Furthermore, the conversation during the earlier part of the track was fully focused on the rival drivers rather than the traffic in the back, a crucial task at this track, thus, a three-position penalty was imposed.
Said penalty sends Charles Leclerc to sixth, and promotes Esteban Ocon to third, Carlos Sainz to fourth and Lewis Hamilton to fifth.
Scuderia Ferrari only commented on the incident through a tweet that said: “After qualifying, the Stewards decided that Charles impeded Lando Norris in the tunnel section during Q3. Charles has been given a three place grid penalty and will thus start from sixth place in tomorrow’s Monaco Grand Prix. This actually promotes Carlos to fourth place.”
