Carlos Sainz hits back at Charles Leclerc for ‘complaining too many times’ after clash

Carlos Sainz has hit back at Ferrari F1 teammate Charles Leclerc for complaining “too many times” after their clash in the early stages of the Spanish Grand Prix.

Sainz pulled off an aggressive overtake on Leclerc into Turn 1 in the early stages of the race at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.

The move left Leclerc frustrated, reporting over team radio: "Sainz came too close to me!"

Replays showed Sainz leaving Leclerc not enough space, resulting in minor contact.

After the race, Leclerc was very unhappy with Sainz’s approach, revealing that they had agreed beforehand to save their tyres.

“We had a clear strategy at the beginning of the race with both to save tyres to attack later on,” Leclerc said. “Carlos didn't do any saving in Turn 14 and of course had an opportunity to overtake me in Turn 1, which is a bit of a shame because we lost time between us.”

Leclerc also explained that the contact resulted in front wing damage.

"I damaged my front wing because of Carlos making the turn and not seeing I was inside and that made our race more difficult,” he added.

"I didn't understand the point of doing that when it was clearly stated before the race that we had to save in this part of the race.

"It's a bit unnecessary, but I also understand that it's his home race and it's also an important moment of his career so I guess he wanted to do something a bit spectacular. But I probably wasn't the right person to do that with."

However, Sainz seemed unimpressed with Leclerc’s latest complaints.

Sainz felt that he was simply “on the attack” and racing aggressively.

“It’s too many times that he complains after the race about something,” Sainz told Sky Sports. “He’s obviously hot, he might think that… at this point of the season… I don’t know.

“I was on the attack. We were on a new soft, Mercedes were on a used soft, and we had to go on the attack in the first laps when you have a new tyre, try to pass them. Like we said even before the race. I pass Charles because… I don’t know if he did a mistake or managing too much. I nearly passed Lewis, undercut Lewis, I nearly passed Russell in the pit stop.

“I was trying out what I have to try out there as a driver. He elected to manage more, in the end, it kind of paid as he beat me at the end on a soft-medium-soft. For me, I elected to be aggressive soft-medium-hard and it didn’t pay off. I think George and I on the hards were too slow while the guys on soft were very quick.”