Charles Leclerc has confirmed Ferrari’s team orders were part of a pre-arranged plan at the Russian Grand Prix.
The Monegasque lost the lead to Sebastian Vettel into Turn 2 at the start but rather than working together to open a gap over Lewis Hamilton in third, instead, the German was asked to let his teammate back through.
The four-time world champion wouldn’t abide, citing the need to pull away from the Mercedes and would continue to hold the lead until his pit-stop when Leclerc would complete the undercut.
“I don’t know exactly what happened. We had an agreement, I spoke with Charles in particular before the race, I think it was quite clear, but maybe I missed something,” Vettel told Sky Sports.
“I’m sure we will talk about it but it’s bitter today because we wanted to have the cars finishing one and two, so not the result that we wanted.”
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Sebastian refused to reveal exactly what was agreed but Leclerc wasn’t so shy and admitted some bemusement at Vettel’s initial failure to comply.
“I will always trust the team, but the tactic was me giving the slipstream to be one-two at the end of the straight, which happened but then I… I don’t know,” he said. “I need to speak to the team to know the situation better.”
The main question for many onlookers was why Ferrari was prioritising this switch of places over working together to pull ahead of Hamilton?
“I think that’s what we did until the pit stop in a way, I lost the lead during the stop and then the car broke down so it’s a bit irrelevant,” Vettel explained.
“But I think up until that point we did.”
As it turned out, Ferrari would inadvertently cause their own downfall as an MGU-K failure for Vettel led to Virtual Safety Car which allowed Lewis Hamilton to pit and remain ahead of Leclerc.
An effort to respond by pitting again for soft tyres failed, leaving the 22-year-old to be philosophical in third.
“At least we are quite consistent It’s good to be back on the podium – a shame for the team to not have the second car up here,” he stated.
“On our side an OK race, Mercedes are still very quick on the race runs, a lot quicker compared to qualifying.”