Charles Leclerc, Ferrari, Circuit de Catalunya, 2024

Leclerc and Stroll reprimanded for “erratic” driving in collisions with rivals

Formula 1

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Charles Leclerc and Lance Stroll have been given formal reprimands for their incidents with two other drivers during final practice.

Leclerc made contact with Lando Norris after encountering the driver during a flying lap. Moments earlier, Stroll provoked contact with Lewis Hamilton in similar circumstances after also catching the Mercedes at turn five.

The stewards ruled Leclerc and Stroll both acted in retaliation and that their moves were erratic but not dangerous.

The Mercedes and Aston Martin made contact at the exit of turn five. Stroll was on a flying lap when he caught Hamilton at the corner. The Mercedes was too slow to move aside and Stroll abandoned his lap and squeezed Hamilton at the exit of the corner, causing contact between the pair.

Hamilton’s race engineer Peter Bonnington warned him “Ricciardo behind on an out-lap with Stroll on a timed, five seconds,” before Stroll caught him. “I didn’t see him, my bad,” said Hamilton after the Aston Martin driver made contact with him.

“The fucking guy thinks he’s all alone on the track,” remarked Stroll on his radio.

Stroll told the stewards he intended to “express his displeasure” to Hamilton by driving towards his rival at the exit of the corner. The stewards accepted the contact between the pair was “incidental” and therefore had not been dangerous.

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After speaking to both drivers the stewards deemed “the driver of car 18 [Stroll] stated that he [was] impeded by car 44 [Hamilton] into turn five and that upset him. He admitted that he wanted to express his displeasure to the other driver by pulling over on him at the exit.

“Both cars made slight contact which was incidental. However, the stewards consider the move made by car 18, whilst not being dangerous, to be erratic and therefore issue a driving reprimand in line with precedents.”

The contact between Leclerc and Norris occured further on from the exit of turn five and at higher speeds. Leclerc moved left towards Norris and caused contact with the McLaren, but after speaking to the pair the stewards decided this had been a misjudgement by the Ferrari driver.

“The driver of car 16 [Leclerc] stated that he [was] impeded by car four [Norris] into turn five and that upset him. He then had to abort his flying lap and contended that, while trying to get off the
racing line before turn seven, he misjudged the position of his car and made slight contact
with car four.

“Irrespective of any possible intent, the stewards consider the move made by car 16, whilst not being dangerous, to be erratic and therefore issue a driving reprimand in line with precedents.”

This was the first reprimand of the season both drivers have received.

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Leclerc and Hamilton’s radio messages from the incident

Leclerc’s race engineer Bryan Bozzi told him that Norris had also got in the way of Lance Stroll:

Leclerc Fucker!
Bozzi Yes, we’ve seen it.
Leclerc I don’t understand why they do that.
Bozzi No, I think he blocked Lance as well.
Leclerc I really don’t.
Bozzi So we go to the grid engine four.
Bozzi No, sorry, we need to complete this lap then next one we go to the grid.

On Norris’ radio, his race engineer Will Joseph was telling him to watch for Leclerc and others when the incident happened:

Joseph And Leclerc close behind him, after him is four-and-a-half seconds to Verstappen.
Joseph And Verstappen turn five. And Lando for the flag would be target minus four…
Norris Ah he just drove into me. I think I’ve got damage.
Joseph Okay, understood.
Norris Yeah, Leclerc just drove into me.
Joseph Okay keep an eye on other cars behind. next one is Sainz turn nine. Lando we think tyre pressures are okay. Ocon now turn nine. I’d like to try to stay out and do the launch, please.
Norris Yeah.

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Author information

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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26 comments on “Leclerc and Stroll reprimanded for “erratic” driving in collisions with rivals”

  1. Both should have gotten a penalty, Leclerc especially as intentionally swerving into another car out of anger/frustration should be seen as been unacceptable behaviour.

    1. Agreed and a hefty one.
      But… astounding both norris and hamilton do not receive a penalty also.
      If lec and stroll would not have retaliated, the surely would have been penalized for obstruction

      1. You generally don’t get penalised for blocking in practice unless it’s dangerous.

    2. @roger-ayles A careful reading of the article indicates only Stroll’s collision was deliberate. Leclerc’s was a failed attempt to avoid Norris (caused by the red mist descending). The stewards had to issue some sort of penalty for both, and I’m disappointed in both of them.

      Both can consider themselves lucky that the stewards have in previous races had to excuse collisions from Verstappen that resembled Leclerc’s collision today. Had that not been the case, I think both would have received some sort of grid penalty (and if Stroll had been the only one there, the focus on his deliberate action would have been a big grid drop to be consistent with precedent for using cars as weapons).

      1. had to excuse collisions from Verstappen that resembled Leclerc’s collision today

        Example please?

    3. I think they exploited that Stroll did it and wouldn’t matter in quali to fans give themselves an excuse not to penalize Leclerc. If Stroll had been the only one to do it, there’s no way he’s not getting a penalty. They just didn’t want to compromise Leclerc’s part in the show and they could cover this up more easily by not penalizing Stroll.

  2. 16 million followers on Instagram absolves you from ramming another car, good job FIA!

  3. Had that been Sargeant……

  4. STR got. Pass because they had to give LEC a pass. F1 is suffering because of VER’s dominance and they did not want to drop the Ferrari back.

    1. F1 is not suffering. Its an exiting season with close performance between cars. Converging performance and the driver makes the difference

      1. It is an exiting season as the fans are exiting from attending and viewing races. Hoping for some exciting races but it’s still about the shows and penalties will be assessed accordingly.

    2. 100% – that was my analysis of the situation.

  5. Both should have been excluded from qualifying. Driving like that must not be seen as acceptable.

  6. The longer the governing bodies leave these incidents unpunished, the closer we are to something more serious happening. Drivers should never take matters into their own hands and intentionally drive into others. No matter how “safe” they might consider their actions.

  7. Judging by the other comments, I have a fairly controversial opinion on this – I’m glad neither were punished.

    My rationale for this is simply that I don’t like practice or non competitive sessions impacting quali results. I think it makes it confusing, similar to unnecessary carryover penalties like Perez in Canada, where he could theoretically have served it during the race if race control made the decision in a timely manner.

    I think that Stroll and Leclerc should get penalty points (and that penalty points should mean something) but I’m not for sporting penalties and races ruined for moments of silly driving. The punishment never fits the crime. It strikes me as the adults telling off the children – these incidents should be dealt with by the drivers in pre race meetings.

    Had there been a car written off, I think the punishment should be that the driver responsible should be excluded from quali – simply as the penalty should offset the loss. But, truthfully, that’s not the case here – it’s poor, impetuous driving and a reprimand seems proportionate to me.

    1. @rbalonso The regulations aren’t supposed to be applied by outcome, but by degree of infraction.

      1. So I’ve heard before – but one would seriously argue Alonso would have been penalised 20s in Australia had Russell finished the race.

        1. No-one*

        2. Zero doubt about it. Hell, he even get more heavily penalized than Hamilton did for the Silverstone incident with Max.

    2. My rationale for this is simply that I don’t like practice or non competitive sessions impacting quali results.

      I can see that if, for example, a team ran a wing in FP1 that turned out to be illegal, I don’t think that should be penalised, but where do you draw the line. If you think a driver using his car to reprimand or intiidate an oponent is okay if it is just a practice, session what if a driver got out of his car, walked down the pit lane, and punched the other driver? Should the FIA also turn a blind eye to that? After all, if it is FP1, you are saying penalties shouldn’t really be applied.

      I think F1 should have a zero-tolerance policy, and when you compare it other sports, most of them have had zero tolerance policies for longer than these drivers have been alive.

      1. I think I’d draw the line at the intimidation or aggressive nature being limited to inside the cockpit for a start.

        I’m not condoning what Leclerc did, but I think that he will recognise it was stupid, Ferrari will recognise it was stupid and their sponsors will recognise it was stupid. If he issues an apology and he is given penalty points on his license then I’m happy to let the drivers discuss it in the drivers meetings. Fundamentally, the driver’s bosses should be reprimanding their employees.

        I think this should be a classic case for penalty points. There was no sporting advantage or disadvantage for Leclerc doing this, so I don’t think a sporting penalty is correct to apply. This is what I think penalty points should be for – not track limit violations that the driver has already been penalised for in the race.

        Otherwise, like a lot of rules applied this season, we attribute a really vague rule to an infringement rather than breaking the rule word for word. So if we have contact during an overtake in practice, is that a penalty? Who determines if it was retaliation and/or aggressive? It leaves it too open for interpretation and too officious for me.

  8. “The stewards ruled Leclerc and Stroll both acted in retaliation and that their moves were erratic but not dangerous.”
    So road rage is okay now, as long as you don’t injure anyone?

    But if you start after the lights go off, but before the FIA think is possible to react, that gets a penalty.

    Unbelievable.

    1. The quotations indicate the stewards only ruled that for Stroll, and even then only appear to have put the (compelling) evidence on the sheet rather than actually cite using the car as a weapon (which is the nearest thing in the books to a charge of road rage).

  9. @keithcollantine, why are you not expressing an opinion in the article, only stating the facts? I would have thought this shockingly-lenient decision like this one by the stewards would have got your back up? It’s an absolute disgrace (the stewards, not you), and deserves some strong words from the chief editor and owner of RaceFans. Perhaps you’re going to later post a pros/cons/my-view posting later?

  10. Stroll’s collision was only a light touch at slow speed, and likely didn’t cause any damage to Hamilton’s car, so I can somewhat understand the leniency there. Leclerc’s however was high speed and dangerous, and caused damage to Norris’ car, so imo definitely worthy of a penalty. But Leclerc has always been the golden boy of F1 in terms of leniency with penalties and has gotten away with many past infractions on tenuous grounds, so I’m not too surprised at the outcome.

  11. I’m personally disgusted that no penalty was given. In fact even more so with Leclerc with his rather questionable excuse.

    Even if. IF he believes what he says is true, he should accept that a driver of his standard should be able to execute the intended maneuver without contact with another car. Especially outside of a race situation. And I say “if” merely because I am not in his head. But given his radio I really find it hard to believe that it wasn’t intentional.

    There should be absolutely no room for using a race car as a weapon of intimidation (I understand one can make an argument that intimidation frequently occurs in a race, however I believe that the circumstances that differentiate what I am discussing here from strongarm racing are quite distinct.)

    Even swerving toward someone without contact should not be tolerated. It just isn’t part of racing at all.

Comments are closed.