Ferrari has admitted that it “forgot” to tell Charles Leclerc about the five-second penalty handed down to Sebastian Vettel in the Canadian Grand Prix.
Vettel was given the punishment for not rejoining the track safely after he had made a mistake and cut across the first chicane, and forced Lewis Hamilton to slow to avoid contact.
In the closing stages of the race, Vettel’s pace dropped off and that allowed Leclerc in third place to close up on the two leaders.
But Leclerc was not aware that there was the chance of moving up to second place if he got close enough to Vettel.
In the end, he missed out by just over a second for a result that could have cost his team-mate vital championship points.
Speaking after the race, Ferrari team principal Mattia Binotto revealed that in the intensity of the situation surrounding Vettel, there had been no communication with the Leclerc over the leader’s punishment.
“We didn’t [tell him],” said Binotto.
“It has been a mistake from our side.
“We were very busy on the pitwall and simply we forgot.
“We should have done it, but we didn’t.”
Leclerc says that even if he knew about the penalty he would not have been able to make any further progress to close the gap.
Asked if he would have done anything differently if he knew Vettel had a penalty, Leclerc said: “No. Because anyway I was pushing very hard to try to catch up.
“I saw they were fighting and I saw they were close at least, and I saw also that we were quite quick and catching up.
“I was pushing hard so that if anything happened I had the opportunity to be as close as possible to do so.
“So no, it would not have changed my approach.”