Charles Leclerc has admitted his anger at being forced to retire from the Brazilian Grand Prix after an early collision with out-of-form Oscar Piastri and young gun Kimi Antonelli.
The Monagasque driver failed to see out the first 10 laps of the race at Interlagos, coming off worst in a three-way collision at turn one during a restart, after an early safety car.
‘I’m really p****d off, there was nothing risky about my move,’ Leclerc said. ‘In these incidents, I have nothing to learn on my side; I did nothing wrong.
‘I would do it again twenty times, but unfortunately, the mistake came from the inside.
‘I am not angry with either of them. It happens. My view is that Oscar [Piastri] was a bit optimistic, but Kimi [Antonelli] had space. It was an unnecessary collision.
‘He drove the corner as if Oscar wasn’t there. Yes, Oscar was optimistic, but Kimi could have done more to avoid it.’
Charles Leclerc was furious at the manner of his retirement from the Brazilian Grand Prix
The Ferrari driver (left) came off worst in a three-way collision with Oscar Piastri and Kimi Antonelli
The incident came when Leclerc, Antonelli, and Piastri went into turn on three-abreast as they chased down leader Lando Norris.
McLaren’s Piastri, desperate to dive into second in order to close in on his championship rival and team-mate, saw it as a moment to be brave.
He duly belted down the inside but knew he could not slip himself ahead of Antonelli at the start of the Senna S, the opening left-hander where most of the overtaking occurred.
Piastri slammed on his brakes and locked up, sending smoke into the air. He caught the side of Antonelli, the piggy in the middle, who consequently ricocheted Leclerc out of the race.
The stewards deemed Piastri at fault, and he was hit with a 10-second penalty, a sanction with which the Australian driver had no argument from within the cockpit.
However, after the race, the championship hopeful, who is now 24 points behind leader Norris with three grand prix to go, shared his true feelings about the incident.
‘I was clearly alongside when we hit the brakes,’ Piastri told Viaplay. ‘So I was clearly there at some point. Everyone went quite deep and I didn’t get given much space.
‘I got a really good restart and then went up the inside, had a bit of a lock-up but I was still in control and stayed on the inside white line. I can’t disappear so I don’t really know where I was expected to go.’
Lewis Hamilton was also forced to retire as his ‘nightmare’ season continues to worsen
Antonelli somehow came away from the collision unscathed and went on to finish second – the 18-year-old’s second podium of his young career.
Overall, it was an appalling day for Ferrari, with Lewis Hamilton, too, being forced to retire from the grand prix.
The seven-time champion was involved in two collisions inside the first two laps with both Carlos Sainz and Gabriel Bortoleto. He managed to battle on until 39, but the damage sustained had impacted his pace to continue any further greatly.
It was yet another miserable day for Hamilton in what is proving to be a first season to forget at Ferrari.
‘This is a nightmare, and I have been living it for a while,’ Hamilton told Sky Sports. ‘The flip between the dream of driving for this amazing team and the nightmare of the results we have had, the ups and downs, it’s challenging.’