Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur welcomed Mercedes rookie Kimi Antonelli coming to him to apologize for a crash which sent Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc spinning into the wall at Sunday’s Dutch Grand Prix.
Leclerc came out from a pit stop ahead of Antonelli, who tried to pass Leclerc on the inside of a tight banked corner but clipped his rear wheel and sent the Ferrari into the barrier.
Leclerc had been in contention for a podium place earlier but instead watched the end of the race from a sand dune trackside.
“He came to apologize to Charles. Charles was not there, but he came to me. And honestly I appreciate this,” Vasseur said.
“It’s not so easy to overtake in Zandvoort. It means that you have to take a risk. He took a risk. He made a mistake.”
Leclerc said he believed the incident was an honest mistake on a track where overtaking is difficult, and refused to chalk it up to Antonelli’s inexperience.
“I wouldn’t describe it as a rookie mistake. I think it’s just a mistake which can happen in the first year or the fifth year,” Leclerc said. “On a track like this you need to be aggressive [to overtake], but that was too much.”
Leclerc hit the wall in almost the same spot as his teammate Lewis Hamilton had crashed out earlier in the race, sliding wide on a track which had become slippery during a rain shower. It was the first time neither Ferrari driver scored points since their double disqualification at the Chinese Grand Prix in March.
What had been a promising race for the out-of-form Antonelli ended with the Italian finishing outside of the points for the seventh time in nine grands prix. That was because of a 10-second penalty for colliding with Leclerc and another five-second penalty for speeding in the pit lane.
“I was feeling good in the car and just a shame to have missed out,” the 19-year-old Italian driver told broadcaster Sky Sports.
“For the contact, obviously it’s on me. I tried to avoid it, especially when I saw he was coming back in front, but it was not enough. So obviously I feel sorry to Charles and to the team and now we move forward.”
