Sebastian Vettel, Ferrari, Interlagos, 2019

Leclerc: Neither of us were “completely stupid” in race-ending crash

RaceFans Round-up

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In the round-up: Charles Leclerc says his race-ending collision with his team mate was a “huge disaster” caused by minor contact.

What they say

Leclerc said neither he nor team mate Sebastian Vettel had been “completely stupid” when they collided.

There are some situations where we are free to race. Today it was one of those situations, these things happen.

Neither of us have been completely stupid. We might analyse and see what we can do better in the future. The result is a huge disaster, but I believe the incident itself was a very small touch.

Quotes: Dieter Rencken

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Comment of the day

Have Red Bull and Honda made a breakthrough with their power unit?

It seems Red Bull and Honda have found a way of increasing fuel flow and upping the power of the power unit managed through a small lever which Verstappen can manipulate with his right foot.

I wonder if the FIA will ‘clarify’ this as being against the technical regulations or the stewards might even see this as a driver aid.
@Coldfly

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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32 comments on “Leclerc: Neither of us were “completely stupid” in race-ending crash”

  1. LOL, @coldfly. I know RBR have been working on that “driver aid” for some time now, IIRC it even caused Max to crash at Bahrain some time ago ;)

    1. Further proof after the win yesterday, @phylyp.
      Max doesn’t just have a thick neck, but his right lower leg seems to have more muscles as well.

      1. Is their any proof whatsoever to this, would you care to elaborate? What’s the source? Nothing against you @coldfly, but if it’s just an unfounded rumour I don’t even know why it has gotten you a COTD.
        Furthermore it would be as blatant as it could get. How would the FIA not discover this immediately?

        The reason for the Honda engine suffering less from high altitude than the other PUs has been well and truly established by now with Mercedes even admitting they suffer more under said conditions.
        Not taking anything away from the performance of Honda though. They did a great job.

        1. I agree itichy, this should never have been promoted to CotD. At least not without the link to the proof I added in my original post.

          1. That’s modern journalism.. Now you can feel like a f1 driver putting words in your mouth.
            Loosing humor, sarcasm etc..

        2. You know Honda went to their Airplane department to modify their Turbo so i think that Turbo is working very well at high altitudes. It helps to have a airplane factory on your plant.

    2. Jeez, the embarrassment.
      I could take a low profile now and act as this was all a continuation of the joke, but nope. That was just me being an idiot. I didn’t even think about this being a joke for one second, just some conspiracy babble.
      Should have read the comments before mine, eh?

      Think before you write, people. Really do.

      r/whoosh

  2. Can you qualify – Stupid?

    Not completely stupid, its a bit like saying yet they were stupid, just not completely stupid.
    Another half-assed attempt at stupid? I mean its like they can’t even get stupid right ;0)

    maybe next time…..

    1. Must be a language barrier thing, as it’s pretty obvious what he’s trying to say, and even more obvious when looking at the incident.

      1. Yes, probably a language barrier, @ho3n3r.
        – Ich komme von rechts!
        – Oui, je reste sur cette ligne.

        1. Heheh, cool.

    2. “Not idiotic but still pretty silly.”

  3. Wondering where is article about Ricciardo which seems to be highlight on homepage.

    1. The first link in the round-up, from Renault: https://www.renaultsport.com/2019-formula-1-heineken-brazilian-grand-prix-sunday.html?r=331

      “I take responsibility for the incident with Kevin. It was close, but I went into him and he spun. Sometimes you can do that and it works, but sometimes you touch wheels.”

      1. good to read that even Ricciardo accepted the blame for the crash.

  4. Not completely stupid; just stupid enough to DNF both cars. Call me crazy but that’s pretty damn stupid… but equally hilarious.

  5. Mercedes F1 buyout rumors?

    Well that’s amazing. So Mercedes is predicting that when cost cap kicks in they will nolonger be able to keep their operation profitable for them.. Or at least as competitive as now. And anything but winning everything is good enough for them?

    I wonder what a top team like this would fetch on the open market. 1 billion? 2 billion? Billion as in 1.000.000.000 € ?

    Lewis once said if that team put their mind to it, they could put a man in space. And those teams expend effort similar to SpaceX, year on year and deliver #1 excellence in a global competition.

    Mercedes must be stupid to sell it. If I owned a team like that I’d use it to make spectacular road cars. Win LeMans, Formula E, start making Mars rovers, whatever. Disbanding a state of the art team seems like such a loss.

    1. Reliability rules, and further increase of reliability makes winning and loosing streaks longer, and the long run takes shorter time to come. Good will perform well at higher probability, bad will remain bad at higher probability. That’s why F1 should not be about drivetrains lasting thousands of kilometers. Engineering of cheap materials would be equally challenging, but the riches paid too much to give up their edge. Although the long run is quite theoretical thing, so does it ever come?

      But dirty air is a greater problem than reliability, so there is a reason to have hope for a better future.
      If engineers allowed to generate dirty air, to defend the better position of course they will do so.
      It was allowed for a long while, and consequences got escalated. Current era’s aero elements sometimes look nice, but quite exaggerated.

      1. Additionally: ur opinion is right, but wheel to wheel racing is not at state of the art at F1 currently.
        As you said, damn expensive engineering is at state of the art now, I like F1, I have some favourites, but it’s burning money.

  6. A lever used for increasing fuel-flow and upping the power. Based on what info and source? I haven’t noticed nor read anything about something like this, so I’d be interested to know more about the matter if indeed true.

    1. @coldfly‘s jokingly referring to the accelerator in the car, @jerejj, which is indeed a lever that manipulates fuel flow to vary power generated ;)

    2. He is talking about the gas pedal :-)

  7. Nice how Leclerc sees their collision. Much restraint in his words for what was essentially Vettel pushing him to the inside, to gain an advantage and room under braking.

    He did not move, despite getting through 15+ side by side corners during this race. Everyone else he did fine, this time he magically failed to spot Vettel? HaHa!

    The crash itself was not very malicious, they touched a little bit and front and rear tire got punctured and everything fell apart from there.

    Nico Rosberg has a good review here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61h03_1L2QE

  8. I disagree with Leclerc. I think both of them were completely stupid.
    They start to behave like their colleagues at the pit wall. Complete team is hopeless.

  9. This time I say fu both guys. I know it wasn’t a race for the championship but I’m already tired of this situation. Maybe because I grew up with a clear first and second driver at Ferrari, I really can’t understand how you can throw away race and points like this. I feel for the people of the team and for the fellow tifosi, Mattia must sort this s out before 2020.

    1. @m-bagattini Personally I would prefer no team orders at all to having a clear number one and two. I think we paying fans, without which F1 would not exist, deserve racing in the pinnacle of racing, not the ‘fix’ of an order.

      Oh don’t get me wrong, I do understand team orders when they are prudent which is when in the last third of the season one driver has a WDC shot and his teammate does not, and then it really shouldn’t even need an order but is rather common sense that one driver not take points from another. Or even when in a race one driver is just oddly slow and it’s a no-brainer that he should let his teammate by.

      Put another way, I don’t like when a team designates a one and two just to make their managerial lives easier, when millions and millions of paying fans lose out with non-racing…obviously MS/Ferrari being the glaring worst example ever.

  10. Both Ferrari drivers were stupid. The touch was very small and what happened was unfortunate. However there are 2 drivers who both want to assert dominance. Leclerc just giving space and Vettel wanting to dictate the line so early will only result in heartbreak.

  11. Jelle van der Meer (@)
    18th November 2019, 9:47

    I would say Leclerc was completely stupid as they were running 4th and 5th.

    Leclerc risked it all to gain 2 extra points instead he lost 10 points – Yes he made a clean pass and Yes I predominately blame Vettel for the clash (85% Vettel & 15% Leclerc) but Leclerc had much more to lose.

    Now he is 11 points behind Max – Abu Dhabi is not Ferrari’s best track meaning his only real chance to finish 3rd in Championship is if Max retires and even then Leclerc must finish 4th of higher. If Max finishes top 6, Leclerc must win the race to beat Max.

    1. @jelle-van-der-meer?!
      Vettel was predominately to blame but Leclerc was completely stupid? He had a good race, passing everyone cleanly. Then he finds himself behind his team mate at a restart on fresh tyres. Obviously he has to continue racing. Which he did, passing cleanly. It’s over. Except it isn’t. Because Vettel, never one to turn down the chance for chaos, decided he’d go after his clearly faster team mate anyhow with some of his special ‘more or less accurate, not quite sure where the other driver is’ driving.
      As others have pointed out, he crowded Hamilton off track and on to the grass in Mexico, alleging he didn’t know the car that had started next to him on the left might have been on the left. (Pause to consider that excuse.) Potentially catastrophic too (had Hamilton lost control and spun back into the path of the grid, all racing at high speed for the first corner). FIA stewards? ‘Nothing happened, good job Seb, more of the same.’ Duly delivered.

  12. José Lopes da Silva
    18th November 2019, 9:49

    I’m not a Ferrari fan but I would love to see a fight for the title between Vettel and Leclerc. Current F1 era is erasing the past decade history of drivers hired to be number-twos and it’s great to see. Aside from team mates clashing, then we get midfield drivers on the podium. It’s great.

    For the championship it’s a shame Bottas is able to do a Suzuka 3 or 4 times a year.

    1. There would be no fight between those two, Leclerc is a long way ahead of Vettel already on raw speed and consistency.

  13. I would stick with: dumb and dumber

Comments are closed.