Leclerc explains ‘Nice, Carlos, nice’ radio message: ‘I had the priority…’

Things got busy on track at the end of Q1 as drivers fought for track position after the red flag due to Kevin Magnussen’s stricken car.

In the pit lane when the session restarted, Carlos Sainz let his teammate through by moving to the right of the track.

It didn’t last as Sainz overtook Leclerc in the final sequence of corners as the traffic was congested in the final minutes.

This led to an angry Leclerc over team radio: “Nice, Carlos. Nice. Good overtake in the last corner”.

Talking to the media after qualifying, Leclerc explained why he was frustrated.

“In the pit lane it’s something that we were expecting as we are always trying to get out at the same time as it’s better to manage the cars coming but on track obviously this is where we have a bit more of a discussion, we have one race I had the priority to choose whether I want to be in front or behind, and one race Carlos has the priority whether to be in front or behind,” he said. 

“I had the choice here, and I decided to be in front, then at the end we were very tight on timing and it was very difficult for us to know whether we were going to get past or not before the flag and Carlos decided to overtake, which is not ideal, no big deal, with the adrenalin inside the car at that point you don’t know if you’re going to make it, yeah, the radio message was probably a bit more aggressive.

“I think Carlos will understand pretty well.”

Leclerc and Sainz will start fourth and fifth for the British GP.