George Russell was quick to alert his team when he felt Charles Leclerc had gained an advantage by going off the track during the Italian Grand Prix.
The Mercedes driver was running 1.1 seconds behind his rival, the pair separated by Oscar Piastri’s McLaren, when Leclerc went off at the Rettifilo on lap four.
Russell followed Leclerc and Piastri through the following corners to the straight leading to Ascari. As Leclerc chose not to give up the position to Piastri, Russell alerted his team to the situation.
“Surely that’s a lasting advantage for Leclerc,” he said to race engineer Marcus Dudley. “Yeah, they’re discussing it,” Dudley told him.
Formula 1’s sporting regulations state that a driver who leaves the track must rejoin it “without gaining any lasting advantage” and that “at the absolute discretion of the race director a driver may be given the opportunity to give back the whole of any advantage he gained by leaving the track.”
Piastri also complained that Leclerc stayed ahead of him by cutting the corner. “He needs to give that back,” said the McLaren driver. “He went to defend and went long.”
“Yeah, we saw,” said his race engineer Tom Stallard. “Leclerc’s been reported to the FIA,” he added later. “To the stewards.”
However Leclerc was not told to give a place up to either driver. Piastri overtook him two laps later on the outside of the Rettifilo.
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Leclerc’s radio messages
| Lap: 3/53 LEC: 1’24.525 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Leclerc | My God my rears are [unclear]. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Bozzi | Some li-co for brakes, keep it up. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Bozzi | Surface overheating on the rear. Do what you can to cool them down. Leclerc locks up at Rettifilo and cuts across the run-off area |
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| Lap: 5/53 LEC: 1’24.858 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Bozzi | S2, turn one to help the front locking. Some mild li-co if you can. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Bozzi | Avoid hold K1, only K1. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Bozzi | SOC 8, if you keep using K1. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Lap: 6/53 LEC: 1’23.974 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Bozzi | Piastri passes Leclerc on the outside at turn one You have one strike. |
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