Why Leclerc should've got a penalty at the Belgian GP
Charles Leclerc completed what on the surface of things appeared to be a solid drive from P4 to second by the end of the Belgian Grand Prix, but was the Monegasque lucky to escape without a penalty? Here's why we believe that he should've been punished at some point at Spa.
Video Transcript
Charles Leclerc could have won this Grand Prix, though, again, because of that VSC period.
He was actually leading the race after that.
He gained a heap of time on Antonelli and Verstappen, who stopped earlier on, and he was looking really good.
He had some really good pace out there.
He was actually struggling to get past Verstappen early on in the race, but once he got in clean air, that Ferrari was unstoppable in his hands.
Well, unstoppable for a while anyway.
He was eventually passed by Kimi Antonelli.
More on him for the final point.
But should Leclerc have had a penalty?
I think he should have done, and I think he should have had a ten-second penalty.
There was some really poor driving in that maneuver from Charles.
I mean, I love Charles.
I think he's a brilliant driver, but he does have these kinds of mistakes in him.
He just did this I don't know whether it was on purpose.
I don't know whether it was a complete misjudgment.
I'd like to think it was the latter rather than the former, but only he can answer that.
What am I referring to?
The incident with him and Piastri, of course.
So Piastri was running really quickly, and he was about to get past Charles Leclerc.
The Ferraris in those opening laps, they were really struggling for pace.
I mean, the Ferrari has the weakest engine on the grid, possibly maybe with the Honda as well, but we'll never know because those cars are completely in different stratospheres.
But this is a power track.
This is also a track as well where energy harvesting and deployment is more important probably than any track we've been to so far this season.
You're only gonna get more emphasis on the ERS system in the rest of the season really when you're talking about Monza, Italy, and also Las Vegas as well.
Those are the only two I can think of.
This is a proper power circuit with some huge, long, flat-out zones.
Maybe not necessarily straights, but areas of the track where normally you would be full throttle.
But yeah, Oscar Piastri was trying to get past Charles Leclerc going into Les Combes.
Lec- Leclerc was going to the inside, he defended that line, and then Piastri was going to the outside, and Leclerc didn't leave enough room.
He did not leave enough room to, you know, quote Fernando Alonso, a former Ferrari driver, "You have to leave the space.
All the time, you have to leave the space."
And he didn't leave the space.
He did not leave the space at all, and there was contact between the pair of them.
Leclerc got off relatively scot-free from what I can see, but unfortunately, Oscar Piastri, he took damage to his car.
So to get P5 on the road and potentially P4 after Hamilton's penalty, I think he did a fine job, to be honest, in the circumstances.
He said on the radio he didn't leave the space because he didn't, but somehow Leclerc got away with it.
And I cannot explain that one.
Because with Hamilton, you can make a case like I did that it was accidental, that it was him losing control of the car.
But you could also say that because he lost control of the car, it's like, well, that could happen to anybody.
He didn't do it deliberately.
But you could also say that the movement of the car also put himself into Russell, and it was an avoidable incident.
The stewards clearly thought the latter in that case.
But this was totally avoidable.
I mean, Leclerc, he moved under braking.
He closed that gap down under braking.
I'm not saying he did it deliberately necessarily, but that is besides the point.
So I think that Leclerc got really lucky on this one.
A ten-second penalty wouldn't have really changed much.
I mean, he would've fell just behind Max Verstappen as it was, down into P3.
So in the end, it wouldn't have changed much, but he would've probably served it during his pit stop, so it might've done.
It might've done.
But for me personally, I think Leclerc has really got away with one there.
But as it is, he finishes in P2.
It's another good result, and he kept tabs as well with Kimi.
I mean, Kimi got past him.
He was like a freight train going past him, but he kept close to him.
You know, it was a really good battle between the two of them.
I mean, we were robbed of that at Silverstone.
It looked like we were gonna get one at Silverstone between these two in the closing stages.
We got one here, and it was a fine fight between the two of them.
Fifth and final thing we learned, we've got to talk about Kimi Antonelli.
I mean, unbelievable.
I mean, fantastic pole lap and eventually getting the win here.
Despite getting unlucky through the pit stop phase, he still comes out on top, and he needed that as well.
